Good isn’t good enough, and other Flyers takeaways from a loss to the Panthers
With just 10 games to go, there's no time for the Flyers to look back.
Scott Laughton said it best after the Flyers’ 4-1 loss to the Florida Panthers.
“It’s tough,” he said. “It’s tough to swallow, but you continue to roll like that for the last 10 games, you’re going to be on the positive side of it more than the negative.”
The roll was a dominant style of play in which the Flyers not only out-chanced but outplayed the Panthers for most of the game Sunday. The Panthers were just able to do the one thing the Flyers struggled to do: finish.
Felix Sandström was in net for the Flyers, and would surely like the three goals he allowed back.
“I need to be able to step up and keep us in it,” said the goalie, who faced 14 shots. “I’m not happy about today.”
Coach John Tortorella also wasn’t too thrilled with his goalie. He wouldn’t answer a question about Sandström in his 38-second press conference but clarified afterward through Joe Siville, the team’s vice president of hockey communications, that the netminder is “trying his [butt] off.”
But while his game wasn’t great, there was more to this one. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good: Puck possession
Considering the Panthers entered the game as the second-stingiest team in the NHL, averaging 2.43 goals allowed per game, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they held the Flyers to one. What should surprise everyone was how dominant the Flyers were in puck possession and the number of scoring chances, and that they couldn’t get a goal at even strength.
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Overall, the Flyers put 33 shots on their former draft pick Anthony Stolarz, had another 26 blocked, and shot the puck wide or high 19 times. Three of those misses clanked off the metal. That is 78 shot attempts. The Panthers had 31. Woof.
At five-on-five they dominated. Nay, according to Natural Stat Trick, they steamrolled the Panthers.
The Flyers also had 11 high-danger chances in the third period at five-on-five and 20 across the full 60 and at all strengths.
“One-hundred percent,” forward Ryan Poehling said when asked if the team is pleased with the effort. “That’s exactly what it was. I thought we got better as the game went on, created more and more offense, and kept them from getting to our net. But no, sometimes [you’ve] got to give credit to their goalie. Sometimes that’s how it goes and sadly that’s how it went tonight.”
A fun fact is that in the second period, across all strengths, the Flyers held the Panthers to not a single shot on goal for an almost 12-minute stretch. During that time, the Flyers had 17 shot attempts to the Panthers’ four, including Morgan Frost on a two-on-one when the Flyers forward tried to go five-hole and drew a slashing penalty.
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Tyson Foerster had seven shot attempts and Travis Konecny had a game-high 10, including six missed shots. One was a slam-dunk, surefire goal at the left post in the third period that he instead shot through the crease. It was just one attempt in the third period when the Flyers put 17 shots on Stolarz.
“I think probably our urgency throughout the game, but I didn’t think we were bad in the first or second,” said Laughton on the team’s ability to get better as the game goes on. “But we just ramp it up, our puck support has been great. We’ve made a lot of plays. Low five-foot plays across the blue line. Create a lot for yourself.
“So yeah, it’s tough. It’s tough to swallow but you continue to roll like that for the last 10 games. You’re going to be on the positive side of it more than the negative.”
The bad: Teams are coming
Before the Flyers even hit the ice on Sunday, they knew the Washington Capitals topped the Winnipeg Jets.
The win moved the Capitals into the second wild card in the Eastern Conference and within two points of the Flyers for the third spot in the Metropolitan Division. The Flyers have 10 games left, but only two are against playoff teams — each is against the New York Rangers, including a meeting on Tuesday in the Big Apple.
“We’re in a dogfight. Washington wins today, see it,” Laughton said. “We keep battling. We’re going to New York, another good team and we just keep grinding.”
Washington has two games in hand but not an easy stretch. Two games, including its game on Tuesday, are against the Detroit Red Wings — the team the Capitals just jumped in the standings. And before the Flyers and Capitals meet to close out the regular season, Washington has five games against playoff-bound squads.
“You don’t have time to breathe right now,” Poehling said. “I mean, the playoff race is tight, and we have so many games in such a short amount of days. That’s kind of a good thing too, right? I mean, we’re playing well, and you can just kind of forget about it and move on to the next one.”
The ugly: the power play
Everyone knows it. The power play is just not good. Heck, Rocky Thompson, the guy who runs it, said it “stinks” not too long ago. And although the lone goal came on the man advantage, and the two units have looked better at times lately, it went 1-for-5 on the night and that’s just a killer.
The first power play produced just three shot attempts, two of them on goal. The second yielded two shots, and neither came near Stolarz. The third power play was better with seven shot attempts — but only one was on goal by Joel Farabee from 11 feet out.
Power play No. 4 produced only three shot attempts, with Laughton getting a good chance with a backhander in front. But this time they controlled the puck in the offensive zone.
The fifth power play was the one when Bobby Brink cashed in. Brink took a cross-crease pass from Poehling and buried it from the left post. As Laughton said, “He’s an important piece for us. Really good playmaker and it’s good for him to get on the board.”
Brink is on the second power-play unit, which featured some tweaks on Sunday. One was that Sean Couturier, at least for the last man advantage, was back, and the captain played a key role on the goal. As the pass was going across the crease, Couturier was battling with two Panthers in front, which not only distracted Stolarz from reading the play properly but allowed Brink to be wide open at the side.
The other was Poehling on the power play. The forward started the game on the second unit and showcased a keen ability to protect and possess the puck when the Flyers were up a man. The assist was his first power-play point of the season and the third of his career.
“Any time you’re playing more, it’s obviously a confidence booster,” Poehling said. “But at the end of the day, still just going on the power play, you’ve got to do your hard work.”