In my preview to the Flyers-Stars game earlier today, I touched upon several keys to the game that ended up having direct bearing on the outcome of Dallas' 5-1 win over Philly, as well as some that ended up being non-factors.
Let's revisit these issues in deconstructing the result:
1. Containing Dallas' top line:Tyler Seguin had missed two games with concussion-like symptoms, Jamie Benn had been mired in a point drought and Valeri Nichushkin had been moved around in some resulting line juggling. Even so, Seguin and Benn knocked on the door repeatedly in the Stars' most recent game and the entire line (with Nichushkin returning on right wing) looked right on the brink of having a breakout game.
I noted that I expected the Seguin line to see a lot of the heretofore red hot Flyers line of Sean Couturier, Matt Read and Steve Downie. They did, but the Dallas trio that won that battle in a landslide and then did the same thing to the Claude Giroux line.
Well, the team's top line detonated against the Flyers in the second period as Seguin scored a natural hat trick and added an assist and Nichushkin racked up a goal and three assists. Benn assisted on one of the Seguin goals.
Frankly, after the Flyers had survived nine minutes worth of penalty killing time in the first period and managed to exit the period with a 1-0 lead, I thought they were in real good shape.
It would have been especially nice from the Philadelphia standpoint to see the Giroux line take over the game in the fashion that the Dallas line. I had hoped that their role in the third period surge in Detroit would be a springboard game.
Instead, the top Flyers line continued its erratic and largely disappointing first half of the season. The line was held pointless and was minus three on the day (out for the third Seguin goal, the Nichushkin goal 22 seconds later that turned the game into a 4-1 rout and then the third period Cody Eakin shorthanded goal that added further insult into injury).
2. Staying up skates and pressuring Dallas' suspect defense: It didn't happen at all. Dallas generated all the speed and, after the first period, limited the chances the Flyers had against Dan Ellis. Philly really didn't do enough to force the issue. They made Dallas look much better defensively than the club actually is. Meanwhile, the Philly defense did not do very well when the Flyers needed to keep the game close. Mark Streit in particular struggled at both ends of the ice.
3. Dallas pot-stirrers vs. Flyers pot-stirrers: Antoine Roussel is the Stars' version of Zac Rinaldo, and I fully expected those two to clash in this game. Sure enough they did and Roussel owned Rinaldo in a big way on this day. Rinaldo got goaded into seven minutes of penalties and a game misconduct early in the first period after dropping his gloves and jumping Roussel before the Dallas forward had any chance to respond.
4. Flyers surging PK vs. Dallas' struggling PP: Between Rinaldo's seven minutes in penalties and a late first-period Michael Raffl penalty, the Flyers ended up spending nearly half of the first period on the penalty kill. While emerging unscathed -- and getting the lone goal of the first period -- could and should have been a big boon for the Flyers, Philly also had to quickly expend a lot of energy by overusing their penalty killing personnel in a lot of tough minutes. They did fine in the opening stanza, but then got overwhelmed at even strength in the middle stanza.
Lack of discipline has been a problem for the Flyers all season. Rinaldo took steps forward in that area last season but has often reverted this season to doing more things to hurt his own team than to create power play chances for Philadelphia.
5. Second line battle: Being aware of Eakin and Chiasson: Heading into the game, I did not like the matchup of the Flyers second-line without Vincent Lecavalier against the Dallas second line with Cody Eakin in the middle. It turned out that Brayden Schenn line (against the Eakin line) created Philly's lone goal of the game. Eakin scored a third-period shorthander against the Philadelphia first power play unit.
6. Mason vs. Lehtonen: Lindy Ruff elected to go with backup Ellis on this day, so this battle never came into pay. As for Mason, whose run of never allowing more than three goals in a Flyers uniform came to its inevitable end, the Flyers goalie actually played very, very well right up until the point the team ran into a buzzsaw in the form of the Dallas' first line getting untracked and Philly having no response. Without exaggeration, if not for Mason, it could have easily been a 7-1 or 8-1 score after 40 minutes rather than 4-1. The stat line didn't look pretty for Mason on this day, but goaltending was a non-factor in the loss.
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