OPPORTUNISTIC OFFENSE, STELLAR GOALTENDING LIFT FLYERS IN LOS ANGELES
Quantitatively speaking, all wins are created equal. They add two points in the standings. Qualitatively, some wins mean more than others. Likewise, when a team records a shutout, sometimes it's more of a team shutout -- yielding few quality scoring chances -- and sometimes the goaltender has to really work hard for it.
Make no mistake: the Flyers' 2-0 road win yesterday over the Los Angeles Kings was a huge win for the team.
Steve Mason was brilliant in earning his third shutout of the season, and second in his last three starts. This was the toughest shutout of the three, despite the Kings' recent offensive drought and season-long issues with offensive consistency.
The Flyers gave Mason plenty of defensive support in the first 30+ minutes of the game, keeping traffic to a minimum, enabling him to see the puck and blocking a lot of shot attempts (ultimately snuffing out 20). As the match progressed, the Flyers started to spend more and more time hemmed deep in their own end. The shots on Mason's net increased greatly in both quantity and quality.
Fortunately for the Flyers, their goaltender was in full-fledged "Stone Cold" mode. The tougher the chances got, the better Mason got in answering them. Most notably, in one of the best goaltending sequences of the entire season, the Kings had no fewer than five cracks at scoring in a span of about seven seconds. Mason played the angles on the first one and then used his legs and arms to fight for the others from in close as multiple Kings players crashed the net.
No goalie can play at that level on an every-game basis, but it sure is nice when a team can get that sort of play from their netminder. This was an A+ game for Mason.
In a game in which LA outshot Philly by a 35-13 margin -- including a 27-9 disparity over the final 40 minutes -- it was the Flyers who were the opportunistic team offensively against the team with the lowest goals against average in the NHL. The two Flyers goals were simultaneously artistic and hard-working plays marked by pinpoint passing and the eventual goal scorer getting himself into perfect shooting position.
Former Kings winger Wayne Simmonds broke a scoreless deadlock at 7:48 of the first period. Vincent Lecavalier took a pass from Claude Giroux and then faked a shot, drawing both the defense and Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick (11 saves) out of position. Lecavalier then fed the puck to a wide-open Simmonds.
The power forward had what seemed like an eternity to catch the pass, make sure the puck laid flat and then bury it in the back of the net. The goal was the 100th of Simmonds' regular season NHL career and his 18th of the 2013-14 season.
Late in the third period, still clinging to their skinny lead, the Flyers got a power play on a Matt Greene interference penalty. After the Flyers ragged about 12 seconds off the game clock on the delayed penalty, LA finally touched up for the stoppage with 2:53 left in regulation.
On the ensuing power play, the Flyers put the game away after some tense early moments. A good keep at the point by Mark Streit was followed by tic-tac-toe puck movement in the offensive zone. Simmonds retrieved the puck in the corner and put it on the tape to Hartnell. Then Hartnell made a beautiful cross-ice feed to Giroux, finding the Flyers' captain open below the circle to the right of Quick. Giroux made no mistake, scoring his 17th of the season.
Over their last 15 games, the Flyers have gone 13-for-54 (24.1 percent) on the power play. For the season, Philly has risen to 12th in the NHL in power play efficiency. It has been a long climb to get to that point after the team was ranked 29th in the league during the first quarter of the season.
Kimmo Timonen, who struggled in Thursday's game in Anaheim while trying to play through a foot injury that forced him to leave the Flyers' Tuesday game against Detroit early, sat out yesterday's tilt in LA. In the veteran's absence, Erik Gustafsson stepped up to play big minutes (21:26) and provide strong puck movement in addition to three blocked shots.
Andrej Meszaros (14:45) of ice time returned to the lineup with a spot open on the blueline. However, it was Gustafsson, along with Braydon Coburn (22:45, two hits, two blocks), Luke Schenn (20:57, three hits, one block), Nicklas Grossmann (21:54, three hits, one block) and Mark Streit (17:25 including top-unit power play duty, three blocks, two hits) who picked up most of the slack.
Although their line did not get on the scoreboard in the game, the Flyers' fourth line trio of Adam Hall (5-for-6 on faceoffs), Michael Raffl (four hits, two blocks) and Zac Rinaldo (six hits in 8:14 of ice time) that was arguably the club's most effective -- for the second straight game -- in generating sustained forechecking pressure.
Meanwhile, third liners Sean Couturier (19:34 of ice time) and Matt Read (19:30) did yeoman work in their own end of the ice whenever they were out against the Anze Kopitar line; so much so that Kings' coach Darryl Sutter tried to get different matchups when he utilized the home team's right to the last line change.
For the second straight game, the Flyers did a good job of playing a physical game while staying out of the penalty box. It did not ultimately pay off in Thursday's 5-3 loss in Anaheim when Philly's Steve Downie took the team's lone minor penalty. It worked to the team's benefit yesterday, though, with just two penalties to kill. That enabled Craig Berube to better distribute ice time and leave gas in the tank for the key personnel to preserve the lead in the third period.
The Flyers conclude their three-game California trip on Monday in San Jose. As with the Kings, the Sharks have been in a bit of a goal-scoring funk of late and have been losing games to clubs they are better than on paper. However, San Jose elevated its game last night to pull out a shootout win against the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks.
If the Flyers can find a way to win on Monday, the California trip will have been a big success during an extremely difficult stretch of games. Even a 1-1-1 trip would be an acceptable result if the Flyers close out the pre-Olympic break portion of the schedule with strong performances at home against Colorado and Calgary.
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PHANTOMS PREVAIL AT WELLS FARGO CENTER
With the Flyers in California, the club's AHL farm team paid a visit to the Wells Fargo Center for the first of two February games at the facility in South Philadelphia. Yesterday afternoon, the Adirondack Phantoms downed the Washington Capitals' top farm club, the Hershey Bears, by a 4-1 count in front of a crowd of 16,173.
The Phantoms' top-line trio of Kris Newbury (two assists), Tye McGinn (one goal, two assists) and Jason Akeson (one goal, one assists) supplied most of the offensive punch for Terry Murray's team. The club also got an early first period goal from Tyler Brown and a third period power play rebound tally by Ben Holmstrom.
Goaltender Cal Heeter continued what has been an excellent season for the second year pro. He looked sharp and confident in turning back 28 of 29 shots. Most of the rubber came at him early in the first period and late in the third period (by which point the Phantoms had a commanding lead).
For a stretch of about 45 minutes of game play, the Phantoms showed the strong team defense that Murray preaches. It is not a coincidence that the Phantoms had the lowest goals against average in the AHL at near the midpoint of the season and are still in the top three in the league.
Of late, the club has been having trouble with protecting leads after going ahead early. That was not an issue yesterday.
The Phantoms went 6-for-6 on the penalty kill against the Bears. That included a stretch of nearly six consecutive minutes shorthanded early in the second period, with a brief 5-on-3 stretch, as Adirodack held onto a 2-1 lead.
The penalties that led to this stretch were undisciplined ones. Nick Cousins took an offensive zone holding penalty and then Newbury compounded a defensive zone trip by getting an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for arguing the call. The team stepped up during the penalty kill and it turned into a momentum builder beyond the first-period tallies by Brown and McGinn.
Marc-Andre Bourdon had a stellar game on the Phantoms' blueline. He played an aggressive game with several blocks, several solid bodychecks, a few Bears offensive plays broken up before Hershey could get over the blueline and by joining the play offensively when the opportunity presented itself.
The Phantoms first goal came about as a result of Bourdon seeing daylight and carrying the puck up ice to create an odd-man rush. He fed the puck to Brown, who buried a shot past Philipp Grubauer to get Adirondack off and running.
McGinn supplemented the lead by going to the net and getting himself open to receive a perfect feed from Newbury as the center peeled off the half boards. Grubauer had no chance once the puck got to McGinn.
Hersey's lone goal of the game, scored at 17:53 of the first period, came off a broken play. Former Phantoms/Flyers forward Ryan Potulny cut inside with the puck but the puck bounced off his blade. The disc slid through Bourdon's legs as the defenseman was moving over to challenge Potulny and ended up on the stick of Matt Watkins. The Bears forward then snapped a quick shot between Heeter's pads.
The 2-1 score held until early in the third period. On a power play, Holmstrom gave the Phantoms some breathing room at 5:29, knocking in a rebound from the doorstep.
Akeson added some additional insurance at 8:35 with a sniper's goal. The tally, Akeson's 16th of the season, put him in sole possession of the Adirondack Phantoms' all-time goal scoring lead.
The Phantoms will return to the Wells Fargo Center on Feb. 22 for a game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (New York Islanders affiliate). The club's next game is on Tuesday, when it is on the road in Hartford to take on the Rangers-affiliated Wolf Pack.
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