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WRAPUP: DREADFUL NIGHT IN NEWARK ENDS PRE-BREAK SCHEDULE
Even before the opening faceoff was dropped in Thursday night's game at the Prudential Center between the visiting Philadelphia Flyers and host New Jersey Devils, there were invisible caution flags waving for the Flyers: This match had significant potential to be one of those dreaded "trap games." All of the elements were there.
Coming off an emotional win against the team closest in the standings? Check. The Flyers expended a lot of energy, both physical and emotional, in Wednesday's 3-2 shootout home win over the Washington Capitals.
Dangerous juncture of the schedule? Check. The Flyers were playing their final game before a five-night break overlapping the NHL's mandatory three-night Christmas break (Dec. 24 - 26). Moreover, the Flyers were playing for the third time in four nights, and the second half of their ninth set of back-to-back games in less than half of the season schedule. The opponent, New Jersey, did not play on Wednesday.
Dangerous opponent? Check. The Devils were winless in their previous seven games, and figured to bring a lot of urgency into this game. Regardless of the teams' records in a given season, the Flyers habitually struggle against the Devils, especially on the road. After Thursday's game, Philly was saddled with a 32-57-5 record with six ties all-time in road games against the Devils.
In order to overcome these factors, the challenge for the Flyers heading into the game in Newark was to manage their energy wisely, play a patient and disciplined game and not put themselves in a position of chasing the game. Flyers captain Claude Giroux has said that the key to winning such games is for the players to be sparked by one another: someone delivers a big play that inspires the others to dig a little deeper to build some momentum.
None of that happened. The Flyers misdirected their energy, letting disciplined hockey fly out the window. Thereafter, the team slogged through an awful, low-energy performance in a 4-0 shutout loss. The Flyers passed poorly, lost most of the battles for 50-50 pucks, and struggled to get much of anything on net.
Philadelphia was held to just 16 shots for the game; their fewest since Dec. 6, 2014. Cory Schneider cruised to the victory in goal.
Steve Mason started the game in net for the Flyers, going for the 18th time in the last 20 games. He was not to blame for either of the two goals he yielded on eight shots -- a power play deflection on the doorstep by P.A. Parenteau (Mason got a piece of the re-direction, but not quite enough) or a Mike Wood rebound goal in a multi-chance scramble around the Philadelphia net. However, just as with most of the team, Mason's energy tank seemed to be running close to empty after he brought his A game through 65 minutes of hockey and four shootout rounds against Washington the previous night.
With the Flyers trailing 2-0 and the only emotions being generated were ones that led them to the penalty box, Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol decided to switch goaltenders at the start of the second period. Rookie netminder Anthony Stolarz, in his third NHL game and first relief appearance, did what he could. As with Mason, Stolarz was not to blame for either of the two goals he yielded on 12 shots over the final 40 minutes.
Adam Henrique sniped a goal from the slot on a Taylor Hall centering feed from behind the net to make it a 3-0 game at 13:49 of the second period. Kyle Palmieri added a power play deflection goal off a side angle shot by Andy Greene late in the third period to seal the 4-0 outcome.
The Flyers went 0-for-2 on the power play and 4-for-6 on the penalty kill. Whenever the Flyers seemed to be generating a semblance of momentum, they short-circuited it with a bad penalty.
A frustrated Wayne Simmonds (16 penalty minutes) had a particularly rough night in that department. Among his three separate sets of minor penalties and a late-game misconduct, deservedly received a boarding minor on a second period hit on Ben Lovejoy, although Lovejoy turned toward the boards with Simmonds already committed to a hit.
It was just one of those nights for Philadelphia, who had not had a similar full-blown clunker since a 6-3 loss in Toronto on Nov. 11. Even in a 3-0 home loss to Tampa Bay on Nov. 19, the Flyers did not play all that badly. On that night, it took a spectacular performance by goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy and a couple of breakdowns that were turned into odd-man rushes or breakaway goals. The Flyers never seemed "out" of that game until the latter stages.
Conversely, in the pre-Christmas finale, the Flyers spun their wheels and any forward progress was in lurches for most of the game. The four-goal loss on this night was deserved.
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MELTZER'S MUSINGS: DECEMBER 23, 2016
1) Last year, the Flyers had a franchise-record seven affiliated prospects at the World Junior Championships. This year, the ante is even higher. There is likely to be a remarkable nine Flyers-affiliated prospects at the WJC, which is even more remarkable in light of the fact that Travis Konecny and Ivan Provorov are in the NHL and Oskar Lindblom (now 20 years old) has aged out of eligibility for the tournament.
This year's Flyers-affiliated participants: goalies Carter Hart (Canada), Felix Sandström (Sweden) and Matej Tomek (Slovakia), defensemen Philippe Myers (Canada) and David Bernhardt (Sweden), and forwards German Rubtsov (Russia), Mikhail Vorobyov (Russia), Tanner Laczynski (USA) and David Kase (Czech Republic).
Over on the Flyers' official website, I wrote an article looking at how the Flyers' braintrust, led by general manager Ron Hextall and assistant general manager Chris Pryor, evaluate players at the WJC. Hextall's viewpoints on what can and cannot be read into individual WJC performance, which he made after last year's tourney, doubtlessly still hold entering this year's tourney.
2) Yesterday, Bob "the Hound" Kelly joined Brad Marsh for a discussion of how and why so many Flyers Alumni have become so closely bonded to the Delaware Valley community and devote so much of their time to giving back both financially and by volunteering their time.
Most recently, a group of Flyers Alumni, including Kelly, Marsh, Brian Propp, Neil Little, Don Saleski, Doug Crossman and Joe Kadlec, continued an annual Alumni tradition of serving meals to the homeless at St. John's Hospice at 12th and Race Sts. in Philadelphia. Another annual Alumni holiday tradition is to work with CityTeam to distribute holiday presents to impoverished families in Chester, PA.
The Hound and Marsh also talked about the upcoming Alumni Weekend (Jan. 13-14, 2017), featuring a meet-and-greet reception with Flyers fans at the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia on the 13th and the Flyers Alumni vs. Penguins Alumni game at the Wells Fargo Center the next night. Kelly revealed that this is Flyers' fans final chance to see Bob Clarke and Bill Barber don the Flyers uniform and skate in a game -- neither will participate in future events in a playing capacity. Additionally, this year is the final one that Hound himself will play in Alumni games. He, too, feels it is time to pass the torch to younger Alumni players.
Tickets to the Alumni Game are almost gone. Most of the remaining ticket availability is single-seat only, so if you are planning to attend, act fast. Access to the Golden Anniversary Reception, which was only announced a week ago, is also going quickly.
Click below to listen to the entire Kelly-Marsh conversation:
3) Coming tomorrow: A look at Flyers prospects on the Lehigh Valley Phantoms through the Christmas break: Samuel Morin, Travis Sanheim, Robert Hägg, Reece Willcox, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Radel Fazleev and goaltender Alex Lyon.
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