Flyers vs Wings: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

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It was a night of frustration for the Philadelphia Flyers (37-26-12) as they dropped their second game in a row this week, this time losing 4-2 in a critical Thursday match-up with the Detroit Red Wings at the Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Frustrating in the big picture that they had yet another opportunity to gain ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race with teams in front of them losing.

Additionally, they carried play for the majority of the game (and especially in the third period when they severely tilted the game in their favor), and outshot the Red Wings 34-19.

However, they made critical mistakes at inopportune times.

Despite the fact that Rick Tocchet’s team built a 15-4 shot advantage, two of those inopportune times came in that dominant third period as the Red Wings scored on their first and third shots.

As a result, the Red Wings got an important win. They were led by old nemesis Patrick Kane’s three point night (1G, 2A) and Alex DeBrincat’s two goal game, while the Flyers got goals from the returning Tyson Foerster and Travis Konecny.

However, despite Red Wings goalie John Gibson starting his 13th consecutive game, the Flyers were unable to take advantage and now find themselves trailing Detroit and the Ottawa Senators by two points in the Eastern Conference standings.

The Good

What else can be said about Porter Martone’s second NHL game (and his home debut) other than he seemingly did everything but score a goal. Martone assisted on Konecny’s deflection goal, had nine shots on goal, and was a plus-one. He had multiple scoring opportunities in the second and third periods. He also had a “Welcome To The NHL” moment when Red Wings goalie John Gibson knocked him to the ice in the first period. However, that didn’t stop him from getting into the prime scoring areas. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before he’ll score his first NHL goal.
Winger Tyson Foerster returned from a 49 game absence to join them for the final eight games of the season. Playing on the Flyers first line with Trevor Zegras and Owen Tippett, he had jump from the first shift of the game and scored the game tying goal 31 seconds into the second period. He rifled home a hard wrist shot off a flubbed one timer by Tippett that found it’s way onto his stick. While his offensive play leveled off after his goal, it was plainly evident to see how much his team missed having him in the lineup. The trio were an offensive threat throughout the game, but there’s no question that Foerster enhanced them as a group.
The Flyers got a very strong performance from a Sean Couturier-centered fourth line with Luke Glendening and Carl Grundstrom. Couturier set a physical tone with a big hit on Red Wings forward Emmitt Finnie in the first period. Glendening got a breakaway and rebound chance in the first period and nearly scored crashing the net in the second period. Grundstrom was around the puck all night and played a strong game along the boards digging pucks out.

The Bad

Philadelphia made too many critical back-breaking mistakes in this game. Almost all of the goals they gave up were a result of some kind of mis-play. Probably the most egregrious sequence was on Lucas Raymond’s late second period goal. J.T. Compher got a takeaway at the blueline on Jamie Drysdale. Ersson was able to make a stop, but the puck rebounded to keep it alive. Defenseman Simon Edvinsson picked it up and centered it to Compher. All three forwards (Noah Cates, Matvei Michkov, and Denver Barkey) and Drysdale converged on the right side, leaving Raymond wide open on the left to easily beat Ersson.
Philadelphia penalty killing performance has dipped recently and that pattern continued in this game. In the first period, the Red Wings were able to attack their weak spots. A perfect example was Dylan Larkin getting two point blank chances on Ersson. And on Debrincat’s late first period power-play goal, Kane got a bit too much space to make the play.
The Flyers had territorial dominance, but results matter. Despite the fact that they generated 34 shots on goal, they also had 20 missed shots. As they began chasing the game in the third period, too many shots didn’t make it to the net.

The Ugly

The officiating in the game was particularly sub-par, especially in the opening two periods. Referee Cody Beach’s crew handed out a pair of ticky-tack penalties to the Flyers, including what could be charitably be called a phantom cross checking penalty to Martone. He also got into a bit of testy verbal exchange with the rookie. But a questionable tripping call to Couturier led to the Red Wings getting a late first period lead. In addition, the Flyers didn’t get their first power-play until early in the third period, especially with Detroit not playing a clean game. Tocchet let his displeasure known in his postgame comments: “Well, I just thought the first half, I don’t know, it was two to nothing penalties for us. I didn’t feel that way. Yeah, I didn’t agree with the first 30, 35 minutes at all. That happens. I might be wrong, I don’t know.”

As good as the other three Flyers lines were, the Cates unit with Michkov and Barkey did not have a good game. Barkey had two bad giveaways in the first period. Michkov had three shots on goal, but was otherwise invisible. And Cates struggled mightily on face-offs, losing seven of ten draws.
Shortly after Konecny was able to cut the Red Wings lead to 3-2, Detroit was able to get a game-breaking response goal 15 seconds later when DeBrincat picked up a missed shot by Andrew Copp and whipped an impossible angle shot that ticked off Rasmus Ristolainen’s stick and knuckled past Ersson short-side. It was the definition of a back-breaking goal and any energy that the Flyers got from the Konecny goal dissipated after that.