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Meltzer's Musings: 2/29/12

February 29, 2012, 1:49 AM ET [408 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Flyers wasted one of Ilya Bryzgalov's best games since coming to Philadelphia, losing 1-0 to Antti Niemi and the San Jose Sharks. Philadelphia, which has not won back-to-back games since Jan. 10 (Carolina) and 12 (Islanders), finished its four-game road trip with a 2-2-0 mark and the month of February with a 5-7-1 record.

Neither the defensive coverage nor Bryzgalov looked very good at the outside of the game as Ryan Clowe skated into the left circle with the defense backing in. Clowe's shot -- the first of the game -- beat Bryzgalov upstairs at the 1:22 mark of the opening stanza.

Heading into the game, one of the keys was for the Flyers to score first. No team can constantly chase games and hope to be successful in the long haul. The Flyers have now given up the first goal of the game in eight straight matches and in 11 of the last 12. That is simply unacceptable.

As it would turn out, that would be the game's only goal for either team. The Flyers played OK defensively the rest of the way (just 23 shots allowed, 18 blocks) but still had several breakdowns where they allowed point-blank shots (Dan Boyle, Joe Pavelski and a couple others) and they also yielded a couple of 2-on-1 rushes.

That was ample opportunity to get blown out, but Bryzgalov had all the answers the remainder of the night to keep his team within a goal. Unfortunately, they could not beat Niemi on 26 shots on goal and there were few second-chance opportunities.

In the second period, Philly got blanked on 2 power play chances and killed off their lone penalty of the game. Referees Marc Joannette and Mike Leggo put the whistles away again for good in the third, letting both a scary-looking push from behind near the boards by Marc-Edouard Vlasic on Danny Briere go uncalled, as well as a seeming knee-to-knee hit committed by Braydon Coburn.

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette jumbled up all three of his defensive pairings in this game, starting tandems of Carle-Coburn, Timonen-Meszaros (the duo out for the only goal) and Grossman-Kubina. Briere started the game on the fourth line with Sean Couturier and Zac Rinaldo before moving up later in the game.

Philadelphia's top line of Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr had trouble creating or finding operating room for itself in most of the game. Giroux finished without a shot on goal for the first time since March 26, 2011, a span of 66 games. He also lost 20 of 31 faceoffs to the Sharks' centers. Jagr repeatedly tried to skate through two or three San Jose players at a time, only to get stripped of the puck. The trio had one tremendous shift in the final stanza but was otherwise quiet.

The best Philadelphia forwards in this game in terms of generating forechecking pressure and pulling pucks off the walls were Simmonds, Jakub Voracek and Briere. Simmonds was especially feisty in battling around the net but the team generated very few chances in close. On on the team's best scoring chances in front, James van Riemsdyk got boxed out effectively by the San Jose defense. Whatever did get through, Niemi stopped.

Bryzgalov made a couple of big saves for the Flyers early in the third period to keep the deficit to one goal. The Flyers generated a lot of late-game pressure but could not put a puck through the maze of bodies around the net.

Next up for the Flyers is a home meeting with the Islanders on Thursday. The game will mark the beginning of what will be an extremely busy month of hockey for the Flyers: 17 games in 31 days. However, the Sharks game was the Flyers’ last match of the 2011-12 regular season outside of the Eastern time zone and their final road game against a Western Conference opponent.

By virtue of their loss tonight and the Ottawa Senators win, the Flyers have dropped to the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.

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Kimmo Timonen is renowned for his pain tolerance. But right now, the veteran All-Star defenseman looks to be quite banged up and worn down by all the difficult minutes he absorbed in the absence of Chris Pronger. Ever since the All-Star break, he has looked like he's wearing concrete skates and he's been beaten cleanly far more often than normal.

Even with the acquisitions of Nicklas Grossman and Pavel Kubina to lighten the load on the top four -- and both players have done well so far far, especially Grossman -- Timonen has continued to have an unusual number of rough shifts for him.

Laviolette significantly reduced Timonen's ice time in San Jose. He ended up with the least ice time among the Flyers' defensemen. Andrej Meszaros led the way with 24:47, followed by Matt Carle (22:41), Coburn (19:10), Grossman (19:09) and Kubina (15:59).

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