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The Philadelphia Flyers have been a team that has been pretty resilient in rebounding from tough losses. However, with a slew of recent injuries to their forward group, they knew the path to a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night was a steep one.
Accordingly, the vertical ascent of this game turned into Mount Everest as they lost by a resounding 7-2 score. Nikita Kucherov and Gage Concalves each scored twice, with the former adding two assists for a four point night.
It was a game in which the Flyers attempted to adjust without having Travis Konecny, Bobby Brink, and defenseman Jamie Drysdale (recently placed on injured reserve). Against a full powered Tampa roster and a dominant Kucherov performance, the odds were never in their favor.
For 40 minutes of the game, they were able to stay with the Lightning. But the final 20 minutes were probably among the ugliest stretches of hockey they’ve played this season.
However, the purpose of this space is to start a new periodic feature we’re calling Flyers Focus. FF will shine a spotlight on individual player performances during a given game. However, we aim to provide context and look at where their games currently stand and where they are trending.
First up on Flyers Focus: forwards Garnet Hathaway, Owen Tippett, and goaltender Samuel Ersson.
Hathaway
Despite the ugliness of Saturday’s game, one of the highlights was Garnet Hathaway. After 42 games, the Flyers veteran fourth line agitator was finally able to find the net for his first goal of the season.
With the Flyers trailing 1-0, Hathaway was able to get inside position in the slot as defenseman Noah Juulsen fired a shot that he was able to deflect past Andrei Vasilevskiy. It was a long time coming and there was a palpable sense of elation and relief for the 34 year old.
“It was a little overdue,” Hathaway said. “I can’t go back and change anything that’s happened so far. It doesn’t help me to look back and ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda.’ It’s nice to help the team on the scoresheet. We needed more than that tonight, unfortunately.”
Of late, since he was scratched for six games from late December through January 2, Hathaway’s jump has been noticeable. His physicality, his willingness to forecheck and stir things up, getting to the net front. After going 36 games without a point, Hathaway is on the score sheet.
“He’s a pro,” Tocchet said. “Just the conversations we had while he was sitting out. He said ‘I can’t waste anytime. I got to practice and work with the coaches.’ He’s watching video. When he’s not playing, he’s with the coaches and working hard. I respect that alot. He wasn’t pouting.”
“I told him, I hope you’re mad that you’re not playing, but he said ‘Tocc, I can’t waste my time.” I love guys like that.”
Consequently, Hathaway agreed that the six game benching was a potential turning point in getting back to playing his style.
“I think that’s what I’ve been doing after I sat out those games,” he said. “Knowing (that a passive game) is not my main identity to help my team. It’s not what I lean on.”
Tippett
With the loss of Konecny and Brink, one player that was expected to make a push in compensating for their loss was winger Owen Tippett.
Of late, Tippett’s game had seen a uptick in assertiveness. He’s been powering into the offensive zone with his prodigious speed and getting to the scoring areas. Tippett had also been improving in his defensive detail as well. So there was an expectation that he could take a big step forward in helping the Flyers efforts against the Lightning.
While he was able to tally a power-play goal in the third period, it proved to be a rough evening for him and his linemate. Tippett, Sean Couturier and Denver Barkey finished a combined minus 11 (he was a minus four). The struggles of that unit against Kucherov were a part of why Tocchet attempted to put his lines into a blender during the second period.
“Yeah, they’re a really offensive team and we can’t feed them the way we did. After the first couple (goals), we shut them down a little bit and they didn’t have many chances (in the second period). We let up a bit in the third period.”
However, Tippett views the back-to-back home and home set against the Lightning as a potential positive as they play Tampa again on Monday.
“Obviously, when it’s fresh, you review it, learn from it, and go right back at it with the same systems and learn from what happened tonight.”
Ersson
There was little question that Saturday was a night to forget for Ersson. Already entering the game with substandard numbers, even those took a hit as the Lightning began to pour in the offense during the third period. By then, any save that the Swedish goalie made was met with a Bronx cheer from the crowd.
The ugly final line: seven goals against on 23 shots.
“Yeah, (Sam’s) struggling a bit,” Tocchet said. “You’re going to have tough nights. If you’re going to have an NHL career, you’re going to find yourself in the mud sometimes and you’ve got to get yourself out of it. You’re going to have to work harder, analyze things, and dig down.”
As expected, Ersson’s teammates universally defended him and said that it was on them to play better in front of him. But there never seemed to be that game turning save coming. Kucherov’s second goal, while an amazing across-the-body effort, could be seen as a chance that could’ve been fended off. While breakaways can be tagged as a team-wide breakdown, you’d like your goaltender to look like they have a chance of fixing the error.
Unfortunately, that seems to be emblematic of a goalie who is severely lacking in confidence. While Ersson was willing to speak with the media after the game, the team decided that he shouldn’t.
In a contract season, the totality of Ersson’s work this season hasn’t been encouraging. Yesterday’s game saw his numbers balloon to a 3.33 goals against average and a .858 save percentage. Per MoneyPuck.com, Ersson ranks amongst the NHL’s worst (minimum 16 games played) in expected goals saved above expected per 60 minutes with a minus .0575.
If the Flyers intend to hold onto their playoff positioning, they must get better goaltending behind current #1 Daniel Vladar. There just not getting it from Ersson right now.
