The Philadelphia Flyers are back in the win column following their 3-1 Monday win against the Canucks in Vancouver. It went from pretty to pretty scary in the blink of an eye, but the Flyers were able to avoid another disastrous collapse.

Rick Tocchet started the game with a roll of the dice, taking Simon Benoit and Cole Knuble out of the lineup and putting David Jiricek and Michael Bunting in the game.

David Jiricek had been a healthy scratch for 8 straight games, while Bunting was making just his 9th appearance this season after missing 5 games. It was a risk for Tocchet, but it paid off.

Bunting played his best game in his short tenure with the Flyers. He finally started to show that offensive instinct that the Flyers were looking for when they signed him. Bunting was an improviser on the game’s opening goal, turning a broken play into an opportunity to score, and he did.

The veteran winger was also engaged in front of the net. Bunting was a bit of an agitator on the ice as well.

Jiricek also started to show what the Flyers wanted when they acquired him. Defensively, he still wasn’t great, but the mistakes were not as bad as they had been. Instead, it seemed more like what was expected of him. What had been missing was his offensive game. Jiricek made a couple of really nice passes and showed off his booming shot a few times.

No, Jiricek did not find the scoresheet. But he should have earned himself another look in the lineup.

Noah Cates was another player who did not appear on the scoresheet, but deserves some flowers. He was all over the puck and had at least 4 really good scoring chances. It was one of his most eye-popping offensive efforts of the season. It was a shame that he did not appear on the scoresheet.

Christian Dvorak added two assists to his season total. Matvei Michkov might have played the best 200-foot game of his career. The Flyers nearly scored as a direct result of a great defensive effort from Michkov. He just seemed to be in all of the right spots on Monday.

Not to mention, the Flyers scored the game-winner after Michkov drew the defense behind the net and made a slick backhanded pass to Travis Konecny, who buried the goal.

Joseph Woll was not tested early, seeing just 6 shots in the first 40 minutes. Then, he saw 13 in the final 20 minutes. Woll finished the night with 18 saves on 19 shots, coming up big for the Flyers down the stretch.

It was a big win for the Flyers, simply to find the win column, regardless of the opponent. There was a lot of good for Philly, but at the end of the day, it should never have come down to the wire the way it did.

The Flyers Reverted to the Same Costly Mistakes

Bad penalties, getting too comfortable, and just taking their foot off the gas. We’ve talked about these a lot in recent games to the point where they’ve become a trend.

The Flyers will play a great 40 minutes, then completely fall apart in the third period, making it a close game. Unlike the past few games, the Flyers were able to avoid the disastrous finish. However, it’s still alarming that it happened once again.

If you want to talk about taking your foot off the gas, the Flyers took their last shot of the second period with 6:19 remaining. They did not register another shot on goal until Travis Sanheim’s empty-netter with 59 seconds to go. That is 25:20 minutes in a 2-goal game without a shot on goal – nearly half of the game.

They started the third period strong defensively, but as the period went on, the chances got easier for the Canucks. You could tell the Flyers were getting a little too comfortable. Their structure was breaking down both up top and down low.

When your defensive game is fading, you cannot be taking bad penalties. The Flyers have the Canucks 3 power-play opportunities in the final 10 minutes of the game, which allowed the Canucks to really put the pressure on. Fortunately, Joseph Woll was up to the task.

The Flyers avoided disaster on Monday, but you have to wonder: if this was against any other team, would they have avoided the collapse?