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FLYERBUZZ PODCAST: GIROUX'S STRUGGLES, CLOSING GAMES
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The Philadelphia Flyers were 53 seconds away from their second straight 1-0 road victory when an all-too-familiar downward spiral began. The Flyers did what losing teams do when faced with adversity: they let one mistake turn into two and then three.
Next thing anyone knew, they had to settle for one point instead of two after dropping a 2-1 overtime decision to the injury-depleted Carolina Hurricanes.
The Flyers have now let five standings points slip from their grasp as a result of blown leads in the third period. For all the talk about improved team defense -- and undeniably excellent goaltending that Steve Mason has provided -- this Flyers team has shown an inability to protect hard-earned leads.
When a team is not scoring goals and the margin for error is slim-to-none, every mistake gets magnified. The Flyers have played fourteen games this season. They are averaging a pathetic 1.53 goals per game and have only scored three-plus goals once. That makes it extremely hard to win hockey games and yet they've entered every third period but one this season guaranteed to get at least one point by scratching out one more goal than the opposition in crunch time.
Playing against the Flyers has been a cure-all for opposing goalies' save percentages and confidence issues. It doesn't matter if it's a high-end netminder or a third-string goaltender such as the Hurricanes' Justin Peters. The Flyers' inability to finish scoring chances -- and, for long stretches of games, to generate sufficient forechecking pressure or counterattacks to create additional chances - has gotten past the point where it can simply be called a slump or an adjustment to a new head coach.
Against the Hurricanes, the Flyers had some excellent scoring chances in the first period. Most notably, Sean Couturier hit the post or crossbar on a mini two-on-one with Matt Read. However, that was the only period in which Philly really generated sustained pressure on more than the rare shift. Flyers power plays were actually momentum killers in the opening two periods.
Mason made quite a few outstanding saves to keep the game scoreless, including a stick save on Jordan Staal in the first period that was highlight-reel worthy. The Flyers actually gave up quite a few open chances over the course of the game but Mason was locked in and made all the stops. His glove-work, footwork, positioning and puckhandling were all excellent. The Flyers got outshot 36-29 in regulation and 2-0 in OT. Mason deserved a much better fate.
The Flyers killed off a lengthy 5-on-3 penalty that carried over for 27 seconds from the end of the second into the start of the third period. That is often a big momentum booster for teams but the Flyers' never did seem to generate much of an offensive boost from it.
When the Flyers tried to carry the puck in, they either went offside, lost the puck near the blueline or ended up with a one-and-done foray on the perimeter. When the pucks got dumped in, the puck pursuit was less than mediocre and the Hurricanes had easy breakouts from the defensive zone.
Philly caught a break at the 15:08 mark of the third period when Nathan Gerbe got a little too overzealous tussling with Mark Streit near the Philadelphia net. Gerbe, who is roughly the size of a Keebler Elf, got a double-minor while the 5-foot-11 Streit received two minutes.
The Flyers finally broke through on the ensuing power play. At 16:02, Scott Hartnell tipped home a Kimmo Timonen point shot to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead. Both Hartnell and Timonen recorded their first point of the 2013-14 season. Claude Giroux got the secondary assist.
Despite the assist, Giroux remains largely invisible on a game-in and game-out basis. Even more worrisome than the fact he has not scored a goal in the first 14 games is the lack of scoring chances he's been creating in the last few games for himself or linemates. Giroux does not even seem close to scoring a goal after an earlier stretch where he hit the post several times. The Giroux line often ends up hemmed deep into own zone. I cannot pretend to know the reason why the Flyers captain is struggling this badly, but it clear in watching him that his confidence has plummeted.
Unfortunately, when Giroux has been noticeable this season, it has more often been for being part of a defensive breakdown than a scoring chance at the other end. The final minute of regulation was emblematic of this Flyers season to date.
Nicklas Grossmann had played a really solid game in his first 27 shifts -- defending well, blocking six shots and being credited with eight hits -- but then made a really bad play when he had the puck on his stick. Under no pressure as the Flyers exited the defensive zone, Grossmann inexplicably hammered the puck up the wall well away from teammate Matt Read. The play went for an icing.
It a terrible icing for sure. But an icing need not be fatal. Win the faceoff, defend well, clear the zone, and perhaps even add an empty-net goal and the icing is immediately forgotten. Instead, this one became a turning point as the Flyers began their downward spiral. For the rest of the game, it was one botched execution after another.
With Peters pulled for an extra attacker, the Hurricanes controlled the puck in the Flyers' end of the ice. Opportunities to clear the zone were missed. As the clock ticked under a minute, Grossmann chased Eric Staal into the corner. Giroux let Jordan Staal go by him and received a centering pass from his brother at point blank range. Mason got a piece of the shot but not enough to keep the puck from going over the goal line for the player's second goal of the season.
In overtime, the Flyers played things almost too conservatively at first -- as if Berube was trying to get the game to a shootout on the premise that he liked Mason's chances of making more stops than Peters -- and then made one more major mistake. Streit attempted to stickhandling the puck into the offensive zone and lost the disc to Ron Hainsey.
Hainsey got the puck quickly to veteran defensive forward Manny Malhotra, who skated off on an breakaway. Malhotra slid a backhanded shot past Mason at the 2:40 mark of OT.
Just like that, the Hurricanes brought their five-game losing streak to an end and grabbed two points in the Metropolitan Division standings when they'd been less than a minute from none. The Flyers got one point for the regulation tie but it felt awfully hollow when two points were within their grasp and they fumbled one of them away.
The Flyers return to action to the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday to take on the Devils.
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Congratulations to our FlyerBuzz podcast trivia contest winner Patrick Riley of Media, PA, for being the first to come up with the correct answer. Pete Peeters was the goaltender of record in the game in question. Patrick wins a pair of tickets to Saturday's Flyers-Oilers matinee at the Wells Fargo Center. We will be doing more such giveaways during the season so keep on listening!
On the International Ice Hockey Federation's official Web site, I take an in-depth look at one of the many innovations that the late Fred Shero brought to the NHL: studying and adapting European hockey tactics to fit the small-rink game. For more on Shero's contributions in the realm of studying and adapting international hockey to the NHL, click here.
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