Stamkos Records Milestone as the Lightning Beat The Flyers 4 -1: Highlights, Insights, and Breakdown

1. Vasi vs Cahtah Haht

The towering 6'4», 220lbs Andrei Vasilevskiy has dominated NHL shooters since taking over the #1 netminding duties in Tampa in 2016-17. Vasilevskiy won a Vezina in 2019 and back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021; earning the playoff MVP award in 2021.

The goalies traded multiple highlight reel saves. Hart made phenomenal saves on Alex Killorn in tight, Corey Perry on a partial break, Pat Maroon on the doorstep, and Brandon Hagel on a clear cut breakaway.
Vasilevskiy was a brick wall, turning aside a Kevin Hayes breakaway, Morgan Frost slot shot, Noah Cates in tight, and forced Travis Konecny out of real estate on a deke.

Unfortunately, the highlight reel saves by Hart were overshadowed by this odd ball disaster:

Vasilevskiy stole the show, making 21 saves on 22 shots

2. Flyers Surrendered Another Milestone:

Does it seem like a lot of milestones are completed against the Flyers?! Back in February of 2022, the Flyers conceded the 500th goal of Sidney Crosby's career and tonight, another Flyers killer reached a milestone.

Steven Stamkos entered the game with 999 points in the NHL; 51 of which came against the Flyers in 38 career games.

Video of Stamkos' 1000th point below!

3. Sticks!

On the games opening goal, Tony DeAngelo made the proper read on the play initially, but conceded the passing lane to Corey Perry, who looked him off to the corner. Perry took advantage when DeAngelo vacated the passing lane to the slot and Perry made a clean tape to tape feed to a wide open Nick Paul, who snapped the power play goal short side on Hart.

It's a tough read for DeAngelo, as it looked like Perry took away his angle for a centering pass, but denying the low percentage pass to the corner over the high percentage pass to the slot was a miscue.

Travis Sanheim was guilty of poor stick positioning on the Lightning's second goal. Sanheim had his stick on the proper side of the Stamkos, but instead of making a play on the puck and pinning Stamkos, Sanheim flipped his stick to the opposite side of Stamkos' to set himself for the hit; neglecting the puck in the process.

Stamkos made an unobstructed pass to Ian Cole, who fired the puck into the crease and received a fortuitous bounce off of Paul, to beat Hart. The power play assist by Stamkos was his 1000th point.

4. Hot �N Ready:

Egor Zamula served up a back breaker with 10 seconds left in the second period, on a poor decision to blindly swing the puck into the middle on an attempted D to D feed.

John Tortorella has stressed puck management and situational awareness; both were absent on the Zamula giveaway.

5. Konecny Scores In His Return:

In a game with few positives, it was nice to see Travis Konecny score his 8th goal of the campaign upon his return.

The return of Cam Atkinson and James Van Reimsdyk cannot come soon enough for the Flyers struggling offense.

The Flyers will have to be at their best when they face the Metro Division leading New Jersey Devils on Saturday. The Flyers handed the Devils one of their worst loses of the year on opening night when they beat New Jersey 5-2.