The line of Joel Farabee, Scott Laughton, and James van Riemsdyk has eye-opening debut for Flyers
Farabee had a hat trick, Laughton was plus-3, and Riemsdyk had four assists against the Islanders.
How much has Joel Farabee grown since his rookie season?
The 20-year-old winger shares the team lead with five goals in 10 games. A year ago, he didn’t score his fifth goal until his 39th game, and finished with eight goals in 52 games.
For the first time this season, Farabee was on a line Sunday with James van Riemsdyk and center Scott Laughton. Farabee produced his first NHL hat trick, van Riemsdyk had his first career four-assist game, and Laughton equaled a career high with a plus-3 rating in the Flyers’ 4-3 overtime win over the New York Islanders.
Yeah, that line figures to stick together for a while.
The previous night, Farabee was on a line with Laughton and Samuel Morin.
“I think in the last couple games, he’s played really well with Scotty,” coach Alain Vigneault said of Farabee. “There seems to be some chemistry.”
Farabee, who turns 21 on Feb. 25, said he has improved his game by facing Carter Hart and Brian “Moose” Elliott in practices.
“For me, it’s really nice having Moose and Hartsy as our goalies,” Farabee said. “They’re so good in practice and they really challenge us.”
On Sunday, pucks “just kind of happened to go in for me,” he said after joining Mike Richards and Eric Lindros (four times) as the only players in franchise history to register a regular-season hat trick before their 21st birthday. “I feel really good about my game right now and hopefully we keep moving forward from here.”
Impressive numbers
Despite getting decisively outshot in nine of their 10 games, the Flyers (7-2-1) are off to their best 10-game start since 2002-03, when they were 7-1-2. It is only the 11th time in franchise history they have 15 or more points through the first 10 games.
Breakaways
Farabee is tied with van Riemsdyk, Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny for the team lead with five goals apiece. … Van Riemsdyk leads the Flyers with 13 points, equaling the best 10-game start since his rookie season in 2009-10 (2-11-13). … Ivan Provorov played 30:05 Sunday, marking the fourth regular-season game of his career that he had been on the ice for at least 30 minutes. Entering Monday, he was fifth in the NHL in average time on ice (26:11 per game) and was tied for sixth in the league with 21 blocked shots. … On Wednesday and Friday, the Flyers host the Bruins, a team that defeated them, 5-4 (shootout), and, 6-1, in recent games in Boston. Hart allowed a combined 10 goals in those losses. … Despite playing in just eight of the Flyers’ 10 games, Robert Hagg has a team-high 25 hits, which is ninth in the NHL.