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Flyers Gameday: 11/22/17 @ NYI, Wrap: Canucks Crush Flyers, 5-2

November 21, 2017, 11:33 PM ET [642 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
UPDATE 9:45 AM ET

The Flyers have recalled Danick Martel and Samuel Morin from the Phantoms. Both are expected to be in the lineup for Philadelphia against the Islanders: Martel's NHL debut and Morin's second game in the NHL. The Flyers have assigned both Matt Read and Mark Alt to the Phantoms.

GAME 22 PREVIEW: FLYERS @ ISLANDERS

Staggering through the month of November with only two wins to date, Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (8-9-4) are in Brooklyn on Wednesday to play Doug Weight's New York Islanders (11-7-2). Game time at Barclays Center is 7:00 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on NBCSP+.

This is the first of four meetings this season between the Metro Division teams, and the first of two in New York. The teams will rematch in Philadelphia this Friday. They will then reconvene at the Wells Fargo Center on Jan. 4. The season series will conclude in Brooklyn on April 3.

Last season, the Flyers won three of four games against the Isles: one via shootout, one in overtime and one in regulation. The Islanders won once in Philadelphia in regulation.

FLYERS OUTLOOK

The Flyers are just 2-4-3 in November and winless in their last five games (0-3-2). The team has scored first in each of the last three games and held two-goal leads in a pair of games but ended up with nothing to show for it.

Philly enters this game coming off an ugly 5-2 home loss on Tuesday to the Vancouver Canucks. Brian Elliott is likely to get the start in goal.

“Effort was not lacking. We got back on our heels and there was span here where we just had no push but not due to lack of effort. You talk about the frustration. We came into tonight, we had point in 5 of our last 7 games and that’s the reality," Hakstol said after Tuesday loss.

"Some of those, you want to turn into to 2 points. Some of those shootouts, the overtimes. You have to turn those into 2 points. One of the games where we get nothing. You have to find a way to get a point or 2 out of those. You have to take a step back and look at the reality of it. Again, if you’re going to allow frustration or confidence to be the mantra, then that’s false. Like I said, we have to put the work ethic, the preparation and the togetherness back into our game for tomorrow night. And that’s how it is. Turn the page quickly. Thank goodness, we get an opportunity to go back and play tomorrow night.”

ISLANDERS OUTLOOK

The Isles are 4-3-1 thus far in November, and 6-0-2 on home ice for the season. The team strung together a recent three-game winning streak that included road wins against two of the NHL's powerhouses -- the St. Louis Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning -- but followed it up with a 4-2 road loss in Raleigh to the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

Through 20 games, John Tavares has racked up 15 goals and 23 points. He's followed by Josh Bailey (four goals, 19 points, 23 points) and Anders Lee (11 goals, 10 assists, 21 points). Young forward Mathew Barzal has 19 points (four goals, 15 assists) to date.

PROJECTED LINEUPS (Tuesday's lines, will be updated)

Flyers

28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek
70 Danick Martel - 19 Nolan Patrick - 17 Wayne Simmonds
12 Michael Raffl - 51 Valtteri Filppula - 11 Travis Konecny
20 Taylor Leier - 21 Scott Laughton - 40 Jordan Weal

9 Ivan Provorov - 8 Robert Hägg
5 Samuel Morin - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
6 Travis Sanheim - 23 Brandon Manning

37 Brian Elliott
[30 Michal Neuvirth]

Scratches: Dale Weise (healthy), Jori Lehterä (healthy), Andrew MacDonald (IR, lower body), Radko Gudas (NHL suspension, game 3 of 10) .

Islanders

27 Anders Lee - 91 John Tavares - 12 Josh Bailey
16 Andrew Ladd - 13 Mathew Barzal - 7 Jordan Eberle
29 Brock Nelson - 72 Anthony Beauvillier - 66 Josh Ho-Sang
25 Jason Chimera - 53 Casey Cizikas - 15 Cal Clutterbuck​

2 Nick Leddy - 55 Johnny Boychuk
44 Calvin De Haan - 50 Adam Pelech
4 Dennis Seidenberg - 42 Scott Mayfield ​

1 Thomas Greiss
[41 Jaroslav Halak]

Scratches: Thomas Hickey (healthy), Ryan Pulock (healthy), Alan Quine (healthy), Nikolay Kulemin (IR), Shane Price (IR, ankle).

****************

WRAPUP: CANUCKS CRUSH FLYERS, 5-2

The Philadelphia Flyers stubbed their toe again on Tuesday night as they saw their winless streak grow to five straight games in a 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks at the Wells Fargo Center.

For the second straight game, a penalty killing implosion in the second period proved to be the turning point of the match. On this night, a manageable 2-1 deficit for the Flyers (following a short-lived 1-0 lead) turned to a 4-2 gap after Vancouver scored twice. An ugly third period that saw the Flyers draw back within two goals but get outshot by an 11-6 margin, failed to win most of the puck battles and ultimately yield an empty net goal completed another rough night at the rink.

“I don’t think we’re playing bad hockey; we wouldn’t be getting 30 shots a night. But, on the defensive side we need to be sharper. Little details, whether it’s picking up your guy or chipping it out, line change, whatever it’s all those little things that add up and make a difference in the game," Flyers center Sean Couturier said.

"It can get to you. But it’s how we respond and how we play that matters. Then again, like I said we aren’t playing that bad, it’s just little details that we have to be sharper. Tonight’s over, now we have to think about tomorrow night division game. It’s going to be huge.”

The Flyers generated a lot of shot attempts for the game and plenty on goal in the first two periods but that wasn't much consolation. Philly also one again got burned on transitional chances; a problem that has popped up on opposing goals in three straight games.

"I think they had a couple chances and it was back of the net. We got to make plays in our zone. It’s a lot of things. Right now, we’re a frustrated team. We just need to get out of this and we’ll be fine. It’s just we’re going through a tough stretch right now. We just need to figure out our stuff and we’ll start winning again," Claude Giroux said.

Daniel Sedin (4th goal of the season), Brock Boeser (even strength and power play goals for his 8th and 9th overall), Sven Baertschi (power play, 8th) and Loui Eriksson (empty net, 1st) scored for the Canucks. Jacob Markström turned back 36 of 38 shots to earn the win in goal.

Ivan Provorov (4th, goals in back-to-back games) and Jakub Voracek (6th) scored for the Flyers. Michal Neuvirth got the start, but was pulled in the second period after stopping 18 of 22 shots. Brian Elliott went the rest of the way, stopping all 13 shots he saw before he was pulled for an extra attacker. Travis Konecny, Valtteri Filppula, Giroux and Travis Sanheim picked up an assist apiece.

The Flyers went 0-for-2 on the power play and 1-for-3 on the penalty kill. Further compounding Philly's frustrations, the Canucks blocked 27 Flyers shot attempts on the night. The recently struggling Shayne Gostisbehere and Provorov were blocked a combined 10 games alone.

Provorov gave the Flyers a brief 1-0 lead at 8:00 of the first period. He pinched down the left boards and, with Michael Raffl screening. weaved a shot through traffic that changed directions off a defender.

Just 1:42 later, Daniel Sedin took a lead pass from brother Henrik and gained a breakaway. Moving left on Neuvirth, Sedin's shot went off the post, off the sliding goalie's leg and into the net. Nineteen seconds after that, the Flyers paid the price for not getting the puck in deep. The Canucks counterattacked and Boeser blew a shot over Neuvirth to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead.

"The first one’s probably preventable. Me and Ghost talked about it, we could probably sniff that one out a little better. The second one was tough. The young guys are trying to get up for a matchup. Pretty good shot over there," Brandon Manning said.

In the second period, the Flyers were unable to convert a 2-on-1 shorthanded rush with Sanheim in the box on an early-frame slashing penalty. Vancouver made the most of its own rush as Boeser skated untouched into the right slot, took a feed from Derrick Pouliot and scored on Neuvirth at 1:56.

The Canucks' lead extended to 4-1 on a Baertschi power play goal at 14:40. Neuvirth couldn't handle an initial shot and Eriksson got the puck over to an open Baertschi in point blank range to score. Neuvirth, who had stopped 11 of 13 shots in the second period was taken out of the game.

"Our PK needs to come up in a situation. If you look at last game we gave up a few. Also time and the place of the game as well. I think you get a big kill there and you keep it at 2-1, then maybe you get a little momentum from it," Manning said.

In the third period, the Flyers got a goal back at 9:56. Sanheim carried the puck into the Canucks' zone, left it for Giroux and kept skating the net. Giroux fed an oncoming Voracek in the deep left slot and Voracek fired the puck past Markström.

The Flyers got no closer. With 21 seconds left, Eriksson took an unselfish pass from ex-Flyers forward Sam Gagner and had a clear lane to the net for a gentle tap-in the seal a 5-2 final.

"In my opinion we had a tough time starting in the neutral zone. We had a tough time getting through it. A couple times the D tried to skate it through," Voracek said.

"Just we didn’t generate enough speed. On the odd man rush we had a couple of good looks in the second. It is always more open in the second period. In the first and third I didn’t think we generated enough odd man rushes or coming at them with speed. That is how you generate offense.”
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