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Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers (19-11-7) exited the NHL holiday break with a 4-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena. It was a weird game. The Flyers did some of what they set they set out to do coming into the game. However, Philly lost the game in several areas they had no business losing. The final score was deceptive due to three late goals (two Eeli Tolvanen empty net goals sandwiched around Carl Grundstrom’s sixth goal of the season).
The good
- Coming into the game, the Flyers had a three-fold aim: play with discipline. have a shoot-first mentality, and force the Kraken to play from their weaknesses (even strength offense, penalty killing). Philly accomplished all three.
- The Flyers had a 12-2 edge in high-danger chances across all game situations.
- Philly avoided taking a single penalty all night. The Kraken entered the game at the bottom of the NHL in 5-on-5 scoring.
- The Flyers peppered journeyman goaltender Philipp Grubauer with 31 shots (including six power play shots in the first period).
The bad
- The Flyers made Grubauer look like a future Hall of Famer. After the game, Tocchet said his teak skated well but didn’t get enough traffic to the net. That wasn’t necessarily true. However, Grubauer found ways to track the puck and made some bang-bang saves. When you nearly get shut out, something was missing.
- Three of the four Seattle goals involved Flyers miscues. Matvei Michkov went to the wrong place (swinging to the outside when he needed to help inside) on the first Seattle goal. Dan Vladar and Travis Sanheim botched a puck exchanged, leading to the second Kraken tally. Finally, right after he got the Flyers on the board, Carl Grundstrom gave it right back. Eeli Tolvanen scored his second empty netter and third point of the night.
- Over much of the second period, the Flyers had considerable difficulty getting through the neutral zone. Philly made a push in the latter portions but went into the third period trailing 1-0.
The ugly
- The Flyers went 0-for-3 on the power play. There was little they could have done differently (short of scoring) on their first power play. Their second man advantage was decent but not as good as the first. The third one — a gifted opportunity due to a Seattle too-many-men penalty — was sloppy and ineffective. Seattle has struggled on the PK this year. It hurt not to cash in on any of the power plays.
- The Flyers gave up two goals at 5-on-5 and two more at 6-on-5 (empty net) to the team that’s had the most trouble scoring in non-power play situations across the entire NHL. Do that and you deserve to lose.
Flyers Daily: Mondays with Meltzer
With midseason approaching, Jason Myrtetus and I revisited our preseason predictions Topics include:
- Most pleasant surprise.
- Team MVP so far.
- Most reliable players, and more.
Jason also reviews Sunday’s game in Seattle.
World Juniors: Days 3 and 4
- Day 3: An exhausted Latvia suffered an 8-0 thrashing from Finland. Flyers prospects Heikki Ruohonen (one goal, two assists) and Max Westergard (1g, 1a) were among the beneficiaries for the winning side. The Finns are back in action on Day 4 against Czechia.
- Sweden cruised past Germany on Day 3 by an 8-1 score. Team captain Jack Berglund scored twice and won five of nine faceoffs.
- Team USA plays Slovakia on Day 4. Flyers prospect Shane Vansaghi was a healthy scratch last game after dressing as the 13th forward in the opener.
- Team Canada (Porter Martone and Jett Luchanko) play Denmark on Day 4. The Canadians will look for a better performance than their regulation showing against Latvia.
