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The Philadelphia Flyers remain winless (0-2-2) on the young season. However, it’s the losing process itself that’s so alarming.
TheTampa Bay Lightning defeated the Flyers, 4-1, at Benchmark International Arena on Monday evening. Once again, the Flyers were outshot and outchanced by wide margins. That’s been the case in all four games so far.
The first period started out well for the Flyers — tight checking, fairly clean with the puck — but Tampa took over late. Philly killed two penalties successfully. However, Tampa built momentum off their second power play, and didn’t let it go the rest of the period.
Veteran Flyer-killer Brayden Point (1st) scored a late period deflection goal after an offensive zone faceoff win. Tampa took a 1-0 lead to intermission.
On the first shift of the second period, Pontus Holmberg (1st) gave Tampa a 2-0 lead. Seven minutes later,Tyson Foerster (1st) got the Flyers on the board as Porter Martone went to the net
Late in the third period, Ilya Kucherov (1st) scored an insurance goal. Brandon Hagel ENG, 1st) closed out the scoring.
Dan Vladar did his part but took the loss with 32 saves on 35 shots. Andrei Vasilevskiy denied 13 of 14 shots.
The Good
As awful as Monday’s game was overall (again), there were a few individual positives to take away from the latest debacle.
- Dan Vladar bounced back from his rough opening night outing coming off an upper-body injury. The Flyers have gotten good goaltending in three of the four games played to date. That’s how they have even two points.
- Porter Martone played by far his best game of the season. Even though he lost credit for the lone Philadelphia goal (Tyson Foerster got credit after a scoring change), Martone was very active and feisty all night.
- The game actually started out fine. Unfortunately, when things started to go off-track, the Flyers got caved for most of the night
- There were a few pockets of the game — not sustained — where the Flyers had mini-surges. However, they never lasted for more than two shifts. It was still more than in opening loss, but Philly needs more than fleeting baby steps.
- The Flyers didn’t so much kill four penalties as survive them. Even so, none resulted in Tampa goals.
- Denver Barkey returned to the lineup. He replaced Alex Bump on this night.
The Bad
- The Flyers’ confidence is at low ebb and the body language is bad. But they won’t start the crawl out of this hole unless they get the process in order, with and without the puck.
- Travis Sanheim hasn’t played much right-side defense the last couple years. He’s more effective on the left side. Monday was a struggle at times for him.
- The Flyers remain 0-for-the-season on the power play.
The ugly
- The Flyers can’t seem to get out of their own zone to save their lives. Failed clears, giveaways, hesitation: it’s been every game.
- Philadelphia’s passing game has been especially awful. One count on their fingers the number of times — through four games — Philly has been able to string more than two passes together.
- The Flyers continue to have lengthy stretches of puck watching and not moving their feet. They’ve rarely played with NHL-caliber pace in trying to move up ice. They have in isolated pockets but not nearly enough.
Flyers Lineup
Travis Konecny – Christian Dvorak -Matvei Michkov
Carl Grundstrom – Trevor Zegras – Owen Tippettt
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Porter Martone
Denver Barkey – Sean Couturier – Noel Acciari
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Simon Benoit – Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler – David Jiricek
Dan Vladar
[Joseph Woll]
Team Toyota Spotlight: Flyers Too Easy to Play Against
Through most of the preseason and certainly in Wednesday’s debacle, the Flyers were reactive and a stride behind.
“Play north” has become a cliche, but that’s something the Flyers need to establish: better breakouts, connectedness moving up ice, quicker reads and reactions in the defesing, taking away the middle of the ice, controlling the neutral zone, forcing turnovers and counter attacking, wall play, small area plays, etc.
That’s not even close to the full list of things the Flyers need to clean up next game and beyond. Overall, the Flyers fail to gave themselves a chance to compete. They are far too easy to play against.
It all starts with puck possession. First, the Flyers need to win the small battles (faceoffs, loose pucks, board play) it takes to get the puck on a Flyers’ stick in the first place. Second, the Flyers need to take care of the puck once they have it.
Across the board, Philly hasn’t been nearly good enough in the first four games. Not in any zone. The team’s defensive zone containment was marginally better the last two games. That’s about it. The Flyers blocked a lot of shots and they got strong goaltending. Puck possession remains unacceptable.
Moreover, the Flyers are neither disciplined nor creative so far. That’s why get outshot, outchanced, and outscored so widely.
Stanley Cup coming to Medford Lakes
Today in Flyers History: Powered by Guffaw Cigars
The Philadelphia Flyers made a host of changes between the 2010-11 season – which ended with a four game loss in the Eastern Conference Semifinal to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins – and the start of the 2011-12 season.
In came the likes of Jaromir Jagr (returning to the NHL after spending three seasons in the KHL), Jakub Voracek, 2011 first-round draft pick Sean Couturier, Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn and goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. Rookie forward Matt Read made his NHL debut. Out were the likes of Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Dan Carcillo, Sean O’Donnell and goaltender Brian Boucher.
The Flyers could scarcely have asked for three tougher challenges to start the season: an opening night road game against the defending Stanley Cup champion Bruins and two-time Vezina Trophy winning goaltender Tim Thomas, a road game against future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils and then the home opener against the defending Western Conference champion Vancouver Canucks.
On October 6, 2011, the Flyers started the season with a 2-1 opening night win in Boston. In his Flyers’ debut, Bryzgalov (28 saves on 29 shots) outdueled Tim Thomas (21 saves on 23 shots). Jakub Voracek’s late first-period goal in his Flyers’ debut proves to be the game-winner after Claude Giroux (power play) opened the scoring with a spectacular goal off the rush after taking a lead pass from Jagr.
The Flyers weren’t finished. They followed up the opening night win with a shutout win over the Devils and then pulled out a 5-4 win at the Wells Fargo Center over Vancouver to get off to one of the most impressive 3-0-0 starts in franchise history.
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