Game 7 Recap: Flyers 5, Hurricanes 3

The Carolina Hurricanes special team play has struggled much of this young season and those difficulties cost the team on Saturday night in Philadelphia as they dropped a 5-3 decision to the Flyers.

The Flyers went 3-3 while with the man advantage, staking themselves to a comfortable 5-2 lead midway through the second period when Claude Giroux scored the third straight powerplay tally for the home team. Just one night earlier, the Carolina penalty kill looked perfect against the Senators, but they could not kill a penalty this night.

In the meantime, the Canes powerplay was mostly ineffective except for Patrick Dwyer's score off of a nice pass by Jordan Staal in the third.

The Flyers came out fired up early in the game and carried the play in the Carolina zone. Just 3:34 into the period, Jussi Jokinen was called for interference and the Flyers would capitalize as Kurtis Foster ripped a shot past Dan Ellis to make it 1-0.

Shortly after that score though, Eric Staal would set up Joni Pitkanen for an open chance and the Finn made no mistake, tying the score at one.

Later in the period, the Canes would have a mix up at center ice and the Flyers came down with an advantage on Ellis. Jakub Voracek put a shot on the goalie and the rebound came right out to a wide open Braydon Coburn, who scored his first goal of the year during the play.

A few seconds later Jokinen would take another penalty, an unnecessary slashing infraction, and Danny Briere would score to make it 3-1, Philadelphia.

But the Canes kept fighting and just 33 seconds later, Jiri Tlusty forced a turnover deep in the Flyers' zone and E. Staal would make a nice move on Ilya Bryzgalov to make it 3-2 and keep the visitors in the game.

Coach Kirk Muller stuck with Dan Ellis to start the second period, but a turnover behind the Carolina net led to a quick Flyer goal to start the second period and Ellis was yanked in favor of Cam Ward just 52 seconds into it.

Much of the rest of the game, Carolina was firing a variety of shots in the Flyer zone, some on target, some not, but there was mostly frustration as Dwyer would be the only one able to light the lamp the final two periods for the boys in white.

The team will not have much time to dwell on this loss as they prepare for their next game in Toronto on Monday night.

Game Notes:

• The Canes are now 4 of 36 on the powerplay, tied for 25th in the league, (11.1%). They have allowed 10 goals on 33 attempts during the kill, good for 27th in the league, (69.7%).
• Eric Staal has points in five straight games. He finished tonight with a goal and an assist.
• Alexander Semin had a team high six shots on goal and led all forwards with 25 minutes of ice time. Joni Pitkanen led all skaters with 28:37 of TOI.
• The Hurricanes had 42 shots on goal, missed the net 17 times, and had 32 blocked, for total of 91 attempts. But with the big lead, the Flyers went into defensive mode much of the second period and almost all of the third.
• Ellis allowed four goals on 12 shots while Ward allowed one on the 12 shots he faced.