In his penultimate home game of the season, the Canadian gave his fans a reason to dream.
Juraj Slafkovsky scored his first hat trick in the NHL and the Montreal team defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 9-3 on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
At 20 years and 10 days old, Slafkovsky became the second youngest player in Habs history to score a hat trick. Only Stéphane Richer (19 years and 283 days) accomplished the feat at a younger age.
Since the All-Star break, the 2022 top pick has now scored 12 goals and 16 assists in 29 games. Slafkovsky is just one goal shy of 20 this season, and two points shy of 50.
The Canadian took advantage of the generosity of the Flyers, who continued to collapse at the end of the season.
Christian Dvorak and Brendan Gallagher scored doubles, while Josh Anderson and Joel Armia also scored for the Canadian (30-36-12), who ended a three-game losing streak. Gallagher and Armia were also credited with an assist each, while Samuel Montembeault made 32 saves.
Dvorak returned to action for the Canadian after a 42-game absence. He suffered a pectoral major injury that required surgery and was originally expected to miss the remainder of the season.
Jordan Harris had three assists, while Mike Matheson and Johnathan Kovacevic each had two.
Ryan Poehling, twice, and Joel Farabee provided the response for the Flyers (36-32-11), who suffered an eighth loss in a row (0-6-2). Samuel Ersson gave up five times against 17 shots in 32:42 of play before giving way to Ivan Fedotov. The latter stopped 10 shots.
Colin White was passed over in favor of Dvorak.
The Canadian will play his next game on Thursday, when he visits the New York Islanders.
Productive and festive evening
The Habs quickly opened the scoring after 65 seconds of play. Matheson fired a good one-timer, which deflected against Slafkovsky before moving the strings.
Both teams didn’t generate many scoring chances in the first half. Farabee missed a great chance for the Flyers, while Jayden Struble was unable to shoot into a gaping cage for the Canadian.
The Habs got going in the second period. After missed chances by Joel Armia and Nick Suzuki, Slafkovsky scored his second goal of the game at 8:43. He completed a nice passing game started by Matheson and Suzuki.
Gallagher returned to the attack at 10:46. He deflected a Kovacevic shot by placing his stick in front of Ersson’s glove, who could do nothing about it.
Flyers head coach John Tortorella called a timeout in hopes of stopping the Canadian’s momentum. It didn’t work as Slafkovsky completed his hat trick 36 seconds later. This time he beat Ersson to the shield side during a breakaway.
The Canadian added more 1:20 later. The referees awarded a goal to Anderson, who pushed the puck into the goal as he fell after contact with defenseman Nick Seeler.
Fedotov entered the fray in relief of Ersson, but the Canadian quickly outwitted him. Dvorak scored with 4:33 left in the second period, after a nice exchange with Harris.
Poehling put the Flyers on the scoreboard 4:54 into the third period, but Dvorak responded at 10:06 to restart the party in the Bell Center.
Gallagher turned the iron in the wound for the Flyers by scoring on a breakaway 1:13 later.
Farabee scored the Flyers’ second goal with 4:55 left on the clock. Poehling added his second goal of the game with 2:53 remaining. These goals did not change the final result or the enthusiasm of the spectators.
After all, Armia scored in turn, on an assist from Gallagher, with 1:43 left in the game. Armia thus smashed his personal mark with a 17e goal this season.