Flyers Focus: Deep Sixed & In Need Of A Fix

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The Philadelphia Flyers‘ January continues to spiral out of control. On Saturday, their winless skid hit six games following a 6-3 loss to the New York Rangers at the Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Rangers center Mika Zibanejad scored a hat trick, while winger Artemi Panarin would add two goals and three points. Forwards Trevor Zegras and Travis Konecny, along with defenseman Travis Sanheim each picked up a goal and assist.

Rangers Rapid Response Unravels Flyers

It was a game where there were glimpses of sun early, then critical mistakes buried them in an avalanche. Accordingly, a perfect illustration came in the first period.

The Flyers took a 1-0 lead on Travis Konecny’s 15th goal of the season. On the play, winger Trevor Zegras was able to find Konecny with a cross ice pass through the slot that the latter slotted home.

However, the Rangers got a quick response goal as Artemi Panarin beat goal Aleksei Kolosov backdoor. Not a good sequence for the Flyers defense as defenseman Cam York vacated the spot where he set up.

Consequently, this triggered the theme of the afternoon as the Flyers began to unravel, as they gave up two more goals. The first to center Mika Zibanejad that should’ve been stopped by Kolosov. The other would be to winger Brendan Othmann on a three on one break.

Three goals on three shots, which would end Kolosov’s afternoon. But the struggles would only continue in the second period, when the Flyers actually started it strong at five on five, but a pair of bad penalties would allow the Rangers to take a 4-1 lead on Zibanejad’s second.

Philadelphia would continue to compound their errors for the rest of the period as New York took a 6-2 lead to the locker room.

The Rangers would salt the game away in the third period, with only Zegras 19th goal of the season as a Flyers’ response.

“We’ve got to get back to our identity, which is smart hockey, playing disciplined,” Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet said “We can’t keep falling behind and chasing the game.”

Game Management

“We sucked, plain and simple. We need to be better.”

Sean Couturier’s words were succinct and cut straight to the point. It was the sloppiest game of the Flyers season, so far.

While certainly don’t absolve his own performance, which involved a bad turnover at the Rangers blueline as he cut across the middle, it was an accurate reading of a terrible afternoon. Couturier’s miscue lead to one of New York’s many scoring chances on the afternoon.

According to Natural Stat Trick, New York generated 10 high danger chances to the Flyers’ three through the first two periods. In addition, the Flyers continue to get beaten badly on faceoffs, as New York dominated them 40-24.

Another big concern has been the Flyers recent structural problems in stopping backdoor chances. For most of the season, they’ve been able to adhere to Tocchet’s Box-Plus-One philosophy, which lessens the goaltenders load by cutting the defensive zone in half. However, three of the Rangers six goals were all of that variety.

Coverages are being blown on a regular basis and it was magnified on Saturday afternoon. In addition, the Rangers got multiple odd man breaks because Philadelphia’s poor puck management.

The Flyers can’t get into a chance-trading battle because they don’t have the offensive horses to compensate.

“We’re not a team that can open it up,” Rick Tocchet said postgame. ‘Some guys have lost a little bit of confidence and when you’re a little bit tired, you got to stick with structure.”

“We’re kind of in-between. We’re poking and going, and then we’re on the wrong side of the puck. (The other) team’s best players, just look who we’ve played: Kucherov, Point, Tage Thompson, Panarin, and Zibanejad. You can’t give those guys time and space.”

Kolosov/Ersson

Aleksei Kolosov getting the start on Saturday against the Rangers was basically a job interview. As heinous as the Flyers defensive coverage was in front of him, there’s little question that he bombed the opportunity.

Kolosov had shown progress at the AHL level this season with the Phantoms, including earning Player of the Week honors in December. However, he still looked every bit the raw prospect he was last season, as he gave up three goals on three shots in 80 seconds. According to NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman, the Belarussian became the fourth goalie in team history to post a .000 save percentage in a hockey game.

Consequently, the embattled Sam Ersson was pressed into service 8:25 into the game. While Ersson was able to settle things down for the remainder of the period, his second period puck clearing blunder led to the Rangers fourth goal. It was a compound error, as the Flyers had just killed off Michkov’s penalty.

After that, the Flyers looked positively scattershot. Their collective body language on the bench deflated. So much of their success this season has revolved on their goaltending making that crucial save while their defense was under duress. And Vladar has been able to deliver those saves. However, Ersson and Kolosov have not.

In many ways, the Flyers are back in the scenario they were in last season, with underwhelming goaltending threatening to sabotage their playoff ambitions.

York

The Flyers top defensive pair (Cam York and Travis Sanheim) both struggled on Saturday in their own end. However, it was a particularly bad game from York. And it’s been building over the past few games as he has taken ill timed penalties that have led to opposition goals, just as in the Pittsburgh game on Thursday.

However, his minus three rating for the game only begins to tell the story for today.

On the Panarin and Othmann goals, the blame lies squarely on his shoulders. On the Panarin goal, he released on the Russian to pressure Alexis Lafreniere, who already being covered by Owen Tippett. As a result, Panarin was uncovered.

Fast forward to Othmann’s goal, he attempted to push into the offensive zone, which allowed the odd man break in transition. Follow that with a lost puck battle at the blue line which led to Zibanejad completing the hat trick with a two on one with J.T. Miller.

In addition, he was practically turnstiled by center Noah Laba on a Rangers’ zone entry.

York acknowledged it was a rough afternoon for him and the Flyers defense.

“We’ve kind of just been shooting ourselves in the foot, making silly mistakes, I think,” York said. “”It’s correctable stuff, stuff that we haven’t done all year up to this point. So obviously it’s really frustrating. But we’re going to continue to work at it and we’ll clean it up.”

If the Flyers are going to author a turnaround prior to the Olympic break, they’re going to need better play from their top defensive pairing. And for that to happen, York has to make better reads.