Wrap: Flyers Go Down to Canes, 4-3, in Season Finale
There isn't much to say about the Flyers' 4-3 home loss to the Carolina Hurricanes that closed out Philly's 2018-19 season except that it was a rather typical game from this season. Philly dug an early hole for itself in the first period. Their play picked up later on, battling back to tie the game at 3-3, until to shoot themselves in the foot again on poor coverage that led to another go-ahead goal for the Canes. The Flyers pressured in the third period but to no avail.
Oskar Lindblom (17th), Travis Konecny (24th) and Sean Couturier (team-leading 33rd) scored in a losing cause for the Flyers. Claude Giroux recorded his 62nd and 63rd assists of the season, while Travis Sanheim got his 26th assist and 35th point.
Carter Hart (24 saves on 28 shots) was OK in goal in the finale. He battled for pucks, and came up with some big saves in the second period. A couple of the first-period goals he gave up arguably fell into the "not soft but also not unstoppable" category on a night where he would have needed his A game to keep the score closer early. In the big picture, Hart will be fine. He's the least of the team's concerns.
On Sunday afternoon, the Flyers players will clean out their lockers at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, have their exit interviews with general manager Chuck Fletcher and speak to the media. On Monday, the GM and interim head coach Scott Gordon will have their media availability.
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MELTZER'S MUSINGS: AND SO IT ENDS
If the Flyers' 2018-19 season were a novel, it would be "Flowers for Algernon." There was an extended run of progress and hopes raised in the middle stages but, but by the end, the team had regressed back to the state from where it started. The Flyers finished the season losing five straight in regulation. From the crucial three-in-four gauntlet that started on March 14 until the end, the Flyers went 3-10-0. The finished the season at 37-37-8 with 16 fewer points than in 2018-19.
When the time truly came to show they can handle playing against a steady diet of playoff-bound teams, the Flyers failed test after test. Once they got mathematically eliminated, some players (Lindblom for one, who kept digging for pucks and fighting for every inch of space on the ice regardless of the score) kept on competing until the final buzzer of the last game. Others could not truthfully say that over the final five games. Let's put it this way.... a team that gives up five goals as easily and in as short of a span as Philly did in St. Louis on Thursday is one that does not enough players engaged enough to compete.
Down the heart of the stretch drive, the Flyers reverted to chasing games on a nightly basis. Sometimes they rallied to pull even but rarely ahead. For the season, the Flyers trailed at least 2-0 at some point in 32 of 82 games; a whopping 39 percent of the schedule.
The home schedule started with an 8-2 blowout loss to the San Jose Sharks. The road slate ended with a 7-3 drubbing in St. Louis. The GM and head coach changed, Carter Hart emerged and Brian Elliott returned to provide overall solid goaltending in the second half yet the team didn't so much stagger across the finish line as stumble downhill and have gravity do the rest.
Within the Metro Division, the Flyers won only eight of 24 games. They were swept in their season series with the Capitals, Hurricanes and Blue Jackets. They were 2-2-0 against the Islanders. On the bright side, they were 3-1-0 against the Penguins and Rangers but two of the wins against the Penguins required final minute goals at 6-on-5 to force overtime and avoid impending regulation losses.
Toward the end, as in the beginning, there were games where not only the Flyers' execution level was not up to par but also the competitiveness level off the hop. Slow starts were habitual, and there were times where the team gave itself too much credit for periods where their overall play might have OK but they paid dearly for a couple breakdowns. You can't say "except for the first five minutes, I thought we played a good period." All 20 minutes matter, especially when you find yourself in a multi-goal hole because of plays that happened during those few minutes in question.
Once in awhile, a team can play well but will still lose. Additionally, every team has nights where the legs just aren't going or in which it has to play from behind. That's normal. But the frequency with which the Flyers said the right things about coming out ready to out-compete the opposition, about paying attention to detail with and without the puck, etc. versus how often they put it into practice was not acceptable. Too much was said, too little was done.
There were areas that improved over the season, such as the penalty kill (minus a few end-of-season hiccups) after Thanksgiving. There were players who stepped up in the second half and youngsters such as Travis Sanheim and Oskar Lindblom who took a bigger bite of the apple in their roles and thrived for the most part.
However, if we are really being honest, while the outcomes improved significantly from about Jan. 10 until March 14, the process actually went backwards at times. Philly started winning because it was getting very good goaltending for two months and because it was getting scoring from more sources for awhile. There were games where they made entries tough, games where they defended well from the inside out, and games where they strung together some sustained puck possession but only rarely did all of those things come together on the same night or stay that way consistently after showing some progress.
Now here's some good news: There is a lot of parity in the NHL below the elite teams and things are very fluid from year to year. Just as the Flyers collected 98 points last year and were a better Game 6 third period away from taking the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions to a 7th game -- despite not playing all that well for most of the series -- they took a 16-point drop this season with arguably a better roster on paper than the previous year. The reverse is also true. It's not really a big jump to go from 82 up to 100 points.
Look at what the New York Islanders (80 to 103 points despite losing John Tavares for nothing as a UFA) did through hiring Barry Trotz and getting team-wide buy-in to playing the right way. In a single year, with no dramatic additions, the team went from the worst GAA to the best in the NHL. Whether that's sustainable beyond one year without roster upgrades is questionable but the point is that dramatic one-year turnarounds are possible.
It is crucial that Chuck Fletcher nail this offseason. There will clearly be multiple personnel changes on the ice and possible wide-scale changes on the coaching staff as well, because that's how the business of hockey goes when a team that entered the year with 100-point, win a playoff round expectations ends up with 82 points instead.
The team has cap space, picks, prospects, etc. and only one player (Claude Giroux) with a no-movement clause in his contract or even a partial no-trade. That doesn't mean everything will -- or should -- be gutted. But those things, in conjunction with a mandate from David Scott to be aggressive, portend a busy offseason.
In the weeks to come, we'll talk about what may happen and assess what specifically needs to get better (for example, I think the Flyers much more consistent 200-foot commitment from their forwards as well as another bonafide 20-plus-minute defenseman). There is time for it, because it's only April 7 and the offseason has already begun. There are five months until exhibition season starts and nearly half a year until the outcomes start to matter again for the Philadelphia Flyers.