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FLYERBUZZ PODCAST: FLYERS AT QUARTER MARK
In the newest edition of the FlyerBuzz Podcast, I take a look at what has and hasn't worked for the Flyers in the first quarter of the 2013-14 regular season. Considering the team's 1-7-0 start, things could be a lot worse off right now than to have an 8-10-2 mark and be two points behind the third-place Rangers in the wide-open Metropolitan Division.
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For the second time in as many weeks, the Philadelphia Flyers put up a five-spot on the Ottawa Senators. One week after kicking off a three-game road trip with a 5-0 whitewashing of the Senators, the Flyers began a three-game homestand with a 5-2 win over Paul MacLean's club.
Five different Flyers lit the lamp in Tuesday night's win at the Wells Fargo Center. Claude Giroux (power play) tallied his second goal of the season, while Sean Couturier, Kimmo Timonen and Adam Hall (empty net, shorthanded) each scored for the first time. Wayne Simmonds potted his 3rd goal of the season just 23 seconds after Timonen (who also recorded a pair of assists in the game) restored the lead at 3-2.
Steve Mason contributed another outstanding outing for the Flyers, turning back 32 of 34 shots. In last Tuesday's 24-save shutout in Ottawa, the team played virtually spotless defense in front of Mason. That was not the case last night.
The club had some bad turnovers that resulted in odd-man rushes for the Senators. Mason had to come up big on no less than a half-dozen occasions to thwart Ottawa shooters in good shooting range. That included a penalty shot save on Kyle Turris with 5:06 remaining in the third period, which more or less signified to both teams that the Flyers were going to win the game.
The key turning point in the game happened less than a minute (in game-clock time, several minutes in real time) after the Senators came within a whisker of taking a 3-2 third-period lead after trailing the Flyers 2-0 near the midway point of regulation.
With Mason hopelessly caught outside the net and a yawning cage, Turris was staring at a wide open net as Nicklas Grossmann stepped into the crease along the goal line in a desperate attempt to assist his goalie. The puck hit both of Grossmann's skates and skittered wide of the net. The puck may or may not have cross the goal line as it ticked off Grossmann's right skate, but replays were too inconclusive to overturn the no-goal ruling on the ice.
Had that goal counted, there is no telling what would have happened the rest of the game. Perhaps the Flyers would have shown enough resilience to still find a way to win. Perhaps they would have continued to swirl in the same sort of third-period death spiral that cost the club numerous points in the stands in the first quarter of the season. We'll never know and, from a Flyers standpoint at least, it makes no difference after the fact.
Given a reprieve by Grossmann's dual skate save, the Flyers immediately scored a pair of goals after play resumed. First, a pinching Timonen got Lehner to open the pads and slid the puck through the five-hole on a backhanded shot as he moved across the front of the net. Matt Read and Steve Downie earned the assists.
Twenty-three seconds later, Wayne Simmonds potted the third successive scoring chance on a Flyers attack started by Vincent Lecavalier. Brayden Schenn received the other assist. Just like that, the Flyers had their two-goal lead back.
The Flyers have been in a bit of a penalty killing funk of late, just as the power play has started to get rolling after a slow start. Last night, the Flyers managed to kill off three successive penalties in the first period but later gave up power play goals to Clarke MacArthur (8:13 of the second period) and Turris (3:12 of the third) that enabled Ottawa to come back from a 2-0 deficit.
The MacArthur goal, scored high to Mason's blocker side from the deep left slot, appeared to have been weaved through a partial screen from Flyers' defenseman Luke Schenn. The Turris goal was scored off an end-board carom in front of the net.
Philly built its 2-0 lead on a power play goal by Giroux and a lucky even strength goal by the previously snakebitten Couturier.
Giroux's goal was a one-timer off a beautiful cross ice pass from Jakub Voracek. Ottawa goalie Robin Lehner had no chance to stop that one.
The second one was on the goalie. Couturier's flat angle shot from along the goal line somehow found its way in the net as Lehner tried to hug the post. In the first period, Couturier missed an open net on a chance set up by Matt Read, so the puck luck evened out for him and Lehner on this night.
Late in regulation, with the Flyers killing their third delay of game penalty of the game for a player accidentally flipping the puck over the glass in the defensive zone, Adam Hall closed out the scoring. With Lehner pulled for an extra attacker, Hall won his second faceoff of the game with the Flyers outnumbered by two men. The Sens quickly swarmed behind the net and gained the puck. Grossmann thwarted a shot attempt and knocked the puck to Hall.
From the red line, Hall sent the puck into the vacant Ottawa net. The goal was his first in his last 64 games, dating back to Feb. 23, 2012 (Tampa Bay vs. Montreal). More important for a fourth-line center, Hall was 11-for-13 (85 percent) on faceoffs last night. Over the last six games, he has gone on 41-for-48 (85.4 pct) tear at the dot to bring his season faceoff percentage to a robust 63.3 percent.
Final notes: With their five goals last night, the Flyers have finally pulled their season goal scoring average up to a still-anemic two goals per game through the first quarter of the season (40 goals in 20 games). By virtue of going 4-0-1 in their last five games, the Flyers have moved within two points of what would be playoff position in the Metropolitan Division.
Over the first quarter of the 2013-14 season, the Flyers have entered the third period leading, tied or trailing by a single goal in 19 of 20 games. The lone exception was the 7-0 blowout loss to Washington, which had started out by Philly holding the Caps without a shot for the first 15 minutes of the game.
QUOTEBOOK (Courtesy of the Flyers' Brian Smith)
WAYNE SIMMONDS: "No matter what happens, if it’s a goal, if it’s not, we have to stick with the structure. We’re going to get opportunities, and we were getting good opportunities all game. We stuck with our structure and we ended up potting two in that period so it was awesome.”
STEVE MASON: " Earlier in the season guys were really struggling to find their games. You can see it now that guys are starting to play with a lot more confidence, making real nice passes that normally they weren’t making early on in the year, so with them coming around with their game and the confidence building, you’re going to see a much tighter hockey game. With us coming back with the two goals in the third period… that’s what the team is known for in the past –coming back and having big goals and big opportunities. It’s nice to see and let’s just hope that it keeps continuing.”
NICKLAS GROSSMANN: "I tried to get some guys out of the crease and I just felt the puck come off my left foot and then after that it was more reflex. I didn’t really see the puck coming in, so just a little reflex and a lot of luck.”
KIMMO TIMONEN: "I thought we played a pretty solid hockey game. Again, the last few games I thought we have been moving the right way and playing the right way and you know, sometimes when things are not going your way and you find a way to win games, like the last three or four games, things will start happening. That’s what happened here."
CRAIG BERUBE: ""It was a very good response by our team. I thought the whole third period we played to win that game. It's encouraging, good to see. Maybe we got a break on that play? I don't know. I haven't looked at it yet."
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