Last night was one of the stranger games of the season for the Flyers. They dominated much of the play against a depleted Tampa Bay Lightning but made several horrific mental gaffes -- and they all ended up in the back in the net.
I thought the second period was one of the best 20 minute stretches the Flyers have put together this year. Shift after shift, line after line, they kept Tampa hemmed in their own zone. Dwayne Roloson was lucky that the Wayne Simmonds and Matt Read goals that tied the game were the extent of the damage that was done.
As for the rest of the game, Tampa was content -- as usual -- to ice the puck over and over again, not forecheck at all and simply wait for the Flyers to commit turnovers where they could counterattack.
As hideous as Matt Carle's flub (and Ilya Bryzgalov's utter lack of attentiveness) was on the fourth Tampa goal, that was not what cost the Flyers the game even though it ended up officially being the game-winning goal. Scott Hartnell's late power play goal trimmed the deficit back to 4-3 before Tampa scored an empty netter in the final seconds.
The Flyers lost this game on special teams as well as their own series of mental mistakes. Start with the Danny Briere turnover and Carle's drop pass to the forward that left the team vulnerable to Ryan Malone's counterattack. Then add in losing the draw and screening their own goaltender on Steven Stamkos' goal. To that, figure in five Flyers' power plays that went by the wayside until Hartnell blasted a shot through Dwayne Roloson's pads with time running out to rescue at least a point from the game.
I thought the Flyers tried to be a little too cute with the puck for the first 15 minutes of the first period. Peter Laviolette vehemently denied that the team had a poor start, pointing to the fact the club got the first five shots of the period.
My question is how on earth could a coach say his team didn't start poorly beyond the fact that it was yet another 0-2 deficit after the period? You can't call this a good period for the home team: They yielded a shorthanded goal, gave up a goal (opposing power play or otherwise) right off the draw with 2 seconds left in a period, lost 64 percent of the faceoffs, saw the opposition go through the period with zero charged giveaways (to the Flyers' 3), and yielded 4 takeaways including one that led to a goal.
Individually, those stats may not be good evidence that the home side was not sharp in the opening period. But, all combined together, it tells you a lot about the team's start last night. I thought the Flyers played maybe 6 decent minutes out of the opening 20. The rest of the time, they were making low-percentage passes, trying to do too much stickhandling in traffic and being too casual with the puck.
As for the third period go-ahead goal for Tampa, the Flyers got caught on a situation where Brayden Schenn was one-on-four and lost the puck. That allowed Tampa to counter as the Flyers changed lines behind the play. Martin St. Louis knows what to do when he goes one-on-one with the goaltender.
Bryzgalov has been so good for the last few weeks that he was probably due for a game like last night's. He's been picking up the team regularly of late. Whether he got hurt in warmups or otherwise, he was simply not very sharp last night mentally or physically.
That fourth goal should have been one of those ooh and ahh moments where the crowd groans at the horrible turnover but an alert goalie quickly smothers it. Bryz was totally inattentive on that one, and it led to the easiest gift goal you will ever see.
Beyond that, Bryzgalov had three opportunities to make momentum saves (the Malone goal, the St. Louis goal and a 2-on-1 rush for Tampa) and only came up with one of them. You can't blame the goalie in that situation, but he had been erasing so many mistakes in front of him that it was almost surprising to see him beaten.
Goaltending did not cost the Flyers the game last night. Not by a longshot. But it didn't do much toward helping them get through the rough patches this time, either.
By virtue of the Flyers' losses to the Panthers and Lightning, they have shot themselves in the foot in their quest for a late-season push at the Atlantic Division title. They are playing themselves right into a first round date with either the Penguins or Rangers rather than a chance for home ice throughout the Eastern Conference and a meeting with the eighth seed in round one.
At this point, all the Flyers can do is get right back on the horse and get back to work in trying to start playing from ahead instead of almost always chasing games. Last night's game was a good example of why it's so hard to play from behind. Even when you catch up, you've had to expend enormous amounts of energy and the work is only halfway done.
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It is always a pleasure to hang out with my longtime friend Martin Sedin from Modo TV in Sweden whenever he comes to town. Last night, Martin's cameraman was a gentleman by the name of Kenneth Norgren.
Norgren, a former junior hockey teammate of Pelle Eklund's with AIK, has an extremely sharp eye for hockey detail. His assessments of young Flyers players he knew relatively little about prior to this trip were so spot on that you'd swear he'd been watching them regularly all season.
Some NHL team should interview the 49-year-old Norgren to gauge whether he'd scout the Swedish leagues -- juniors and minor leagues as well as Elitserien -- because I think he'd unearth a few late-round draft gems along the way. The guy knows his stuff.
By the way, when I asked him which player in Sweden right now he thinks has the best shot at becoming an NHL impact player in the near future, he didn't hesitate in pointing to Brynäs forward Jakob Silfverberg (an Ottawa prospect) as a player who has everything it takes to be a difference-maker in the world's top league.
Having seen Silfverberg's play in the Brynäs-Frölunda playoff series, I'd tend to agree with Kenneth that the 21-year-old is NHL-ready right now.
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Flyers forward Max Talbot will be making a public autograph-signing appearance today at the Sports Cave in the Shops at Liberty Place (1625 Chestnut St., Suite 171) from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. Tickets cost $30.
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