Flyers notebook: Joel Farabee ‘ready to go dancing’ with Montreal up next
Still no first-round schedule yet, but Farabee did something Saturday night that is going to make a segment of the population suddenly feel old.
Joel Farabee took a cross-ice pass that had some juice on it from Shayne Gostisbehere and one-timed it home for the Flyers’ third goal on Saturday.
This followed Nic Aube-Kubel scoring the first two goals, one on a nifty deflection in front of Andrei Vasilevskiy, the other a hand-eye coordination gem of a saucer pass from Sean Couturier.
Not bad for two guys who started the season with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Farabee was the right winger on the first line in place of Jake Voracek, who was deemed unfit to play. The 20-year-old Farabee, the Flyers’ first of two 2018 first-round picks, has the confidence to handle a role skating alongside foundational pieces Couturier and Claude Giroux.
“Joel’s a young player, scratching the surface as far as his full potential,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “The goal, that was a hard pass from [Gostisbehere]. It takes a special skill set to be able to one-time that. Great play by Ghost, but obviously great shot by Joel.”
Why 2K
Farabee, born Feb. 25, 2000, became the first NHL player born in the 2000s to score a postseason goal, even if it was only a round-robin game.
The intensity will ratchet up game by game, round by round, even if the arena is mostly empty.
The Flyers beat Boston, Washington and Tampa Bay — rather convincingly — without getting any goals from their top six scorers during the regular season (Travis Konecny, Kevin Hayes, Couturier, Giroux, James van Riemsdyk).
Think about how improbable that is.
“It just goes to show how good of a team we are and how deep we are,” Farabee said. “We are excited here. Obviously, like Ghost said, it was three big wins. We’re ready to go dancing.”
Never forget a phase
The second phase of the NHL draft lottery is Monday and the eight teams eliminated in the qualifying round will each have the same odds for the No. 1 overall pick. That pick will be winger Alexis Lafreniere, a prospect considered in a similar class as Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews.
Might be worth tuning in since all eight teams have the same odds of landing Lafreniere, and Flyers rivals Penguins and Rangers are among the eight. NBCSN and NHL Network will televise beginning at 6 p.m.
Ice chips
Vigneault gave the team the day off Sunday, so there was no media availability and thus no updates on Voracek or Michael Raffl. ... All three scorers for the Flyers on Saturday notched their first career playoff goals. Tyler Pitlick added an empty-netter. ... Philadelphia was 0-for-11 on the power-play in three games. Montreal was 0-for-12 against Pittsburgh. ... The Flyers entered round-robin play at around 12-1 to win the Stanley Cup. On Sunday morning, William Hill and Pointsbet had them at 7-1, Parx was 6-1.