Yesterday's Flyers-Bruins game at the Wells Fargo Center was distressingly reminiscent of Games 1, 3 and 4 of last season's playoff series between the clubs: lopsided to the point of being almost comical.
Call the 6-0 result a reality check, I suppose. The Flyers came into the game riding a seven-game winning streak that has seen them beat Pittsburgh, pull of a pair of comebacks from 3-0 deficits, and consistently play from ahead in the other games.
Yesterday, the Flyers ran into the defending Stanley Cup champions, who came in boasting the best goal differential in the NHL and riding a winning streak of their own. So, the worst possible thing that could have happened was to fall behind quickly. That's just what happened, and things just snowballed from there. Philly actually had some scoring chances in the disastrous first period, but couldn't bury a single one of them.
The biggest takeaway from the game was that the Flyers need to get better if they are to run into Boston in the playoffs again and realistically expect to achieve a better result.
Including last season's playoffs and the Flyers' opening-night 2-1 win in Boston in this season, the Bruins are now 8-1-1 against the Flyers in their last 10 meetings. Over the course of those 10 games, Boston has outscored Philly by a 40-17 margin.
As for yesterday's game, Kimmo Timonen's description of it as an "old-fashioned ass-kicking" was almost an understatement. Boston was by far the better team at even strength and on the power play. Philly's power play couldn't capitalize on it own chances. Ilya Bryzgalov failed to come with clutch saves and, by the time Sergei Bobrovsky came in to finish up the game, the outcome was long since a foregone conclusion.
After every game the Flyers play, the team's manager of media services, Brian Smith, puts out a collection of postgame notes and stats. Win or lose, the notes generally try to emphasize the positive for the Flyers. Often the notes get pretty extensive, as Brian is very skilled at going inside the game and handpicking favorable things. Here are the complete contents of the postgame notes from yesterday's game:
* The 6-0 shutout loss was the Flyers’ most lopsided shutout loss at home since a 6-0 loss to Tampa Bay on Jan. 28, 2006.
* Matt Read led all forwards in ice time at 20:35 over the course of 29 shifts.
* Max Talbot took 20 faceoffs tonight and won 10 of them.
Yeah, that's how bad it was for the Flyers yesterday. However, the one thing no one can doubt about this Flyers' team it is resiliency. They need to turn the page, and focus on a week in which they will be play three road games in three different time zones.
The week starts with a game in Colorado on Monday, continues in Dallas on Wednesday and concludes in Madison Square Garden on Friday.
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The mishap with Sean Couturier being struck in the side of his helmet by a Kimmo Timonen slap shot yesterday was the latest in the saga of head injuries for the Flyers this season. It was scary to see and we can only hope that Couturier will be OK.
For now, Matt Read will move back to center. Personally, given the dire circumstances with the concussed Claude Giroux and Brayden Schenn unavailable, I would consider experimenting with either Jakub Voracek or James van Riemsdyk in the middle.
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After yesterday's debacle, Ilya Bryzgalov's penalty killing save percentage dropped to .817, which
ranks 65th among the 71 goalies NHL goalies to face an opposing power play this season.
Sergei Bobrovsky, on the heels of the Flyers' 8-for-9 penalty killing performance in Montreal, now has a save percentage of .900 on the PK.
The leaguewide PK median this season is an .877 save percentage. While the goalie alone should not be given sole credit or blame, Bryzgalov needs to get a lot better in that department.
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