Three Flyers questions to ponder ahead of the NHL trade deadline

NEW YORK ― The Flyers’ season is on a precipice.

Although they didn’t gain any ground in the playoff race, as the New York Islanders and Boston Bruins each won, the Flyers remain in the hunt with their 16th comeback win of the season. Trailing 2-0, they beat the Eastern Conference’s worst team, the New York Rangers, 3-2 in overtime on Thursday.

As the minutes tick off to the NHL trade deadline next Friday at 3 p.m., here are three questions to ponder.

The Flyers’ goalie situation has been a mix of emotions for years, and for most of this season, there has been a question mark around the play of Sam Ersson. No longer the Flyers’ No. 1 goalie, can he even be the Flyers’ No. 2? Inconsistency has plagued the Swedish netminder.

In the first two minutes of the game, Ersson made two ridiculous saves. First, he robbed Rangers defenseman Adam Fox with the glove after a neutral zone turnover led to a four-on-one with just Travis Sanheim back. Travis Konecny tried to hit Christian Dvorak, but the puck was picked off by Mika Zibanejad, who found Fox charging backdoor less than 30 seconds in.

Around a minute later, he stopped a Noah Laba shot from above the circle, which he shot as Emil Andrae knocked him down. That wasn’t the big save; that was two seconds later when Brendan Brisson drove around Denver Barkey to get the rebound. Everyone looked behind Ersson — including Ersson — but he had made the save.

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“I think the first 10 minutes of the first period, we were kind of running around, just giving them pop turnovers and ‘Biggie’ made a ton of great saves for us,” said forward Trevor Zegras.

But then, around the halfway mark of the period, Ersson allowed a weak goal to Sam Carrick. The forward sent a quick turnaround shot on goal from the half-wall that went five-hole on the Swedish netminder. And in the second period, Alexis Lafrenière scored to make it 2-0 — although the 2020 first-overall pick was left wide-open after Noah Cates lost him in the corner.

Ersson then clamped down and stopped the next 15 shots on goal — each save bigger than the next. He tracked the puck well, kicked the pad out, flashed the leather, and as coach Rick Tocchet said, he battled.

“He dug in there. … And even going down 2-0, this is where you’ve got to have that resolve. We’ll kind of give him some more of that confidence; we’ll get him in there again, and we’ll see how he goes,” Tocchet said.

Like Ersson, questions have swirled around the young Russian winger, too. For Michkov, those are about his conditioning, his production, his ice time, and his lack of overtime play.

There’s a good chance a lot of those were answered on Thursday.

Last year, after the 4 Nations Face-Off Tournament break, Matvei Michkov scored 10 goals and 27 points in the final 25 games of the season. Two games into the final 26 this season, he has two goals — both coming against the Rangers.

His first goal cut New York’s lead in half when he scored on the power play midway through the second period. Owen Tippett had the puck along the left wing boards, evaded New York defenseman Will Borgen, and passed the puck to Cates in the left circle. The centerman then sent it quickly to Michkov sitting backdoor at the right post for the slam-dunk goal past Igor Shesterkin.

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It was his 14th goal and third on the power play this season.

“I thought the one he scored for us, the first one, was a timely one, and it kind of helped us calm down and get us back into it,” forward Travis Konecny said. “And, it was good, yeah, he’s playing great. He looked fast. He looked confident with the puck.”

After doing two-a-days off the ice for seven days during the break — one session focused on strength and another on conditioning and stamina while he stayed off the ice — Michkov looked stronger. It was notable in the dwindling minutes of the third period, when he made a move between his own legs to get around Fox and drive to the net. The only problem? He then continued into his countryman, Shesterkin, and was called for goaltender interference with nine seconds left in regulation, with the score tied.

His teammates killed off his penalty, and Michkov, who entered the game with the 10th most minutes in the extra session, finally got some time — granted, it was four-on-four. There was a mad scramble for the puck after Ersson stoned Zibanejad and tried to cover up, but the puck eventually popped out to Sean Couturier in the Flyers’ end, and he fed Michkov.

The forward carried the puck down into the zone and blew by J.T. Miller — yes, his skating stride looked great, unlike an earlier overtime session this season. And yes, he carried it down the left side two days after he said he was “happy” playing on the right side — before beating Shesterkin again. After scoring three overtime game-winners last season, he got his first of the year on Broadway to give the Flyers their third overtime win in 11 games this season.

“Anytime he gets a good look like that, when you can get him clear cut — you watch him in practice — he’s going to have a pretty good chance to score a goal," said Konecny, who seemed to offer words of encouragement to Michkov after the game-winner.

Added Tocchet: “That was a [heck] of a goal, that second goal; Shesterkin’s a [heck] of a goalie. He went five-hole there. He sold it, you know, that’s the stuff that he can do … He had some confidence yesterday [against the Washington Capitals] so he’s getting some confidence here.”

Two games into their return, and like most of this season, the Flyers struggled to put in a complete 60-minute effort. On Wednesday in Washington, D.C., they came out jumping but couldn’t sustain it. On Thursday, the Rangers had the energy early as they skated in their first game back.

It makes it hard to gauge if the Flyers should be sellers or buyers, but they do still trail by eight points in the race for the final Metropolitan Division spot and the last wild card.

But as Konecny said, they “just kept battling back,” like they’ve done all year. The game marked the 39th time the opposition scored first.

“I guess where we’re at in the standings, the last 25 I guess — yesterday, 26 — are all playoff-type games for us, and we got to do something special down the stretch to get in,“ Zegras said.

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”And I think we all know that. Yesterday, I thought, for the most part, played a good game, just gave up a couple of weak-side goals that we’ve been trying to clean up.”

The scouts were out, however, for the last two days. On Wednesday in Washington, D.C., eight teams were represented, with one being the Dallas Stars, a team rumored to be interested in defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen. The Rangers do not identify team affiliates for scouts who are present at home games, and while there were many, The Inquirer could identify a scout from the Vegas Golden Knights, New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks, Edmonton Oilers, and Winnipeg Jets.

Not everyone was there to see Ristolainen, and several are regulars, but ‘tis the season.