PHILADELPHIA — If it casts him as selfish, he won’t mind. If he is told there are better ways to go about his job, he won’t listen. If he is looked at sideways, criticized or questioned for being a self-proclaimed shoot-first hockey player, Cam Atkinson will shrug.
“Good things happen,” he’ll say, “when I shoot.”
That’s his approach, that’s why he twice has been an NHL All-Star and that is largely why the Flyers were able to defeat the Boston Bruins, 6-3, Wednesday.
The right wing acquired in the offseason for Jake Voracek scored his second and third goals of the season largely on his own terms. In the first period, he hustled into a 2-on-1 with Joel Farabee and found the give-and-go routine too inconvenient, shooting instead to beat Jeremy Swayman for a 1-0 lead.
“I wanted to pass,” Atkinson said, “but obviously I decided to shoot.”
When he found himself on another 2-on-1 58 seconds into the third period, Atkinson accepted Farabee’s feed and tipped it past Swayman for the game-winner.
“They came back to make it 3-3,” said Scott Laughton, who scored a goal. “But we had an opportunity and we pounced. And Cam was really good.”
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Alain Vigneault gave goalie Martin Jones his first start of the season, and the backup to Carter Hart stopped 37 of 40 Boston shots.
“Oh, it’s just the way that the schedule is laid out,” Vigneault said. “We’re going out west next week and it’s going to be our first back-to-back.”
After entertaining the Florida Panthers Saturday night at 7, the Flyers will be in Edmonton Wednesday and Vancouver Thursday of next week. The trip will conclude in Calgary next Saturday.
“I had a real strong feeling,” Vigneault said, “that we were going to get a good game from Martin.”
There will be more opportunities.
“We have the second-most back-to-backs in the league,” Vigneault said. “So both our goaltenders are going to be critical to our success this year.”
Said Jones: “It’s good to get that first one under your belt. It’s just one game, but it’s something to build on.”
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Containment of the Bruins’ “Perfection Line” of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak was a point of Flyers’ emphasis after the morning skate.
“They are good players,” James van Riemsdyk said. “They are going to make good plays and make things happen. But you want to limit the opportunities they get by not giving them anything easy and making them come 200 feet every time they have the puck.”
While less than perfect, Pastrnak did find Marchand for a goal to force a 3-3 tie with a minute left in the second.
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Both defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen and center Zack MacEwen made their Flyers debuts Wednesday.
Ristolainen, secured from Buffalo in a deal involving Robert Hagg, had a reputation for toughness, and was paired with Travis Sanheim after having recovered from an upper-body injury.
“I want him to do what he did during training camp with us,” Vigneault said. “He and Travis were a very consistent pair with a high percentage with and without the puck. He was physical when he had the opportunity. That’s what I want to see.”
MacEwen, the 25-year-old Canadian who was snipped from the waiver wire from Vancouver before the season, had been waiting for a work visa. In his first Flyers game, he was credited with four hits.
“It’s exciting when someone joins your group from another organization,” van Riemsdyk said. “You can kind of feed off that energy, sometimes, to be sure.”
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The Flyers, who have tabbed five points in their first three games, considered a victory over Boston meaningful.
“It’s early in the season,” said Nicholas Aube-Kubel. “But later on in the season, it could be one of those two-point games against one of those teams that makes the playoffs. It’s the same thing in the next game against Florida. When you play against teams that are supposed to make the playoffs, it’s exciting.”
