By ANDREW PORTER
Flyers Beat Writer
With 14:45 remaining in the game, Scott Hartnell scored his 7th goal of the season to give the Flyers a commanding 4-1 lead over the San Jose Sharks. A little over six minutes later, with 8:32 remaining in the game, Joe Pavelski tallied his 8th of the year to tie the game at four.
The Flyers took it to the tough western conference opponent, San Jose, for the majority of the game, and should have won the game in regulation, but it didn’t matter. The game went into overtime, a heart-wrenching overtime period at that. Kimmo Timmonen and Doug Murray were called for simultaneous roughing penalties on each other with 2:54 remaining in OT, allowing for some unique 3-on-3 overtime hockey. However, when the penalties ended, overtime continued.
With less than 15 seconds remaining in OT, Mike Richards was flattened from a collision with Dany Heatley around the blue line in the Flyers defensive zone. Still, the Flyers gained control of the puck, and with about 7 seconds remaining, the puck found Richards, and he began skating into the zone of the opposition. With under 3 seconds remaining, Richards flicked a soft wrister toward former Flyers goalie, now Sharks starting goalie, Antero Nittymaki. The puck deflected off a stick, then the skate of a Sharks defensemen, and remarkably bounced through Nittymaki’s five hole as the clock hit 0:00. The Flyers beat the Sharks at the buzzer 5-4 in overtime, or so we thought.
Seconds later, as we watched the replay in slow motion, every one knew. The puck was .1 seconds late, and the Flyers were headed to a dreaded shootout, something that has been unkind to the Flyers, something that seemed unthinkable when Hartnell gave the Flyers a 4-1 third period lead.
The Flyers chose to go first (no idea why), and of course, lost the shootout. Both Briere and Giroux failed to score for the Flyers, while Sharks’ Logan Cuoture and Ryan Clowe both beat Bob. The Flyers have now are now 2-4 in their last six games, with 3 of those losses coming in the fashion of a shootout.
The Flyers travel to Toronto for a game tomorrow night, before a stretch of three tough, rival eastern conference opponents: at Boston (12/11), vs. Pittsburgh (12/14), and at Montreal (12/15). The Flyers are now 3 points behind the intrastate rival Penguins, won their 11th straight game tonight, and surged into first in the eastern conference with 42 points (20-8-2). The Flyers and Pens have already met three times this season (Flyers lead season series 2-1), and Philadelphia is sure to be pumped for Flyers/Pens round 4, next Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
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