Flyers Blanked by Leafs, 3-0
The Philadelphia Flyers were let down by their special teams and an inability to get looks from prime scoring areas as they dropped a 3-0 home decision to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night at the Wells Fargo Center. The Flyers didn't play a horrible game -- the match was pretty even at 5-on-5 -- but the Leafs had a clear special teams edge on this night.
William Nylander scored two goals for the Maple Leafs, breaking a scoreless deadlock midway through the second period and then burning the Flyers with a third-period power play goal that opened a 2-0 lead. The first goal went in off Nylander's skate and was waved off immediately on the ice only to be reversed on replay by the NHL Situation Room in Toronto. The latter was an open look from the slot that he wired home on the power play. Later, a few seconds after a Flyers penalty expired, Justin Braun's man (Alexander Kerfoot) beat him and set up Ondrej Kase for a goal from the slot. Auston Matthews collected a pair of assists in the game.
Carter Hart deserved a better fate in this game. He made all the saves he had a realistic chance of making and looked quite sharp in stopping 30 of 33 shots. Leafs counterpart Jack Campbell had rebound problems in the first period but settled in and went on to record a 36-save shutout.
The power play was a negative momentum generator for the Flyers on this night. Apart from going a frustrating 0-for-4, the team struggled to get set up at all on the first three. Alain Vigneault made a mid-game change to get Keith Yandle back onto the first unit, but it made no difference in this game.
The penalty kill wasn't much better on this night. It took a great save by Hart on Nylander to keep the Leafs off the board on their first power play. Toronto cashed in on a must-kill situation for the Flyers with Ivan Provorov in the box and then killed off Philly's must-score fourth power play of the game. The Kase goal was scored seven seconds after a Claude Giroux offensive-zone high sticking penalty expired but the Leafs were still in attack mode.
Although it was a high-volume shot game for both teams, there weren't a lot of Grade A looks for either team even in a fast-paced but often sloppy first period. The Flyers had a slight overall territorial edge for two periods but Toronto did well in keeping play to the outside and getting sticks in the lanes. The Leafs blocked 16 shots.
With the loss, the Flyers dropped to 6-3-2 on the season. They will continue a three-in-four gauntlet over the weekend with road games against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday and Dallas Stars on Saturday. Vigneault said that he wanted to watch and analyze video from the Toronto game when asked about potential line juggling to try to create some offense. Although the Flyers got three secondary-scoring goals over the previous three games (two by Scott Laughton, one by Deric Brassard), the team overall has been reliant on the top line and PP1 to provide most of the goal scoring over the last eight games. When they don't get it, the Flyers have found it tough to score.
Rasmus Ristolainen led all players in the game in hits (5), while Braun led all players in the game in blocked shots (7). Sixteen of the 18 Flyers skaters recorded at least one shot on goal with 10 of those 16 recording more than one shot. Cam Atkinson led the team with five shots on goal. However, as noted above, quantity of the shot really didn't equal high-quality in this game. Campbell had a good luck at most of the Toronto shots. Hart did as well for long stretches but when there was a tester, it was more likely to be in the Flyers' end of the ice.
For more about Wednesday's game, see the Postgame 5 on the Flyers' official website.
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Wrap: Phantoms Beat Hershey, 4-1
Unlike the Flyers game against the Maple Leafs, special teams were the key to victory for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms as they scored four unanswered second period goals -- including two shorthanded tallies and a power play marker -- to defeat the host Hershey Bears, 4-1 at the Giant Center.
Hershey took a 1-0 lead to the first intermission on a goal that developed moments after a clean faceoff win in the Lehigh Valley zone. That's all the Bears would get, however. Felix Sandström went on to stop 30 of 31 shots to earn the win.
Offensively, all the damage done by the Phantoms came in the midde stanza. Max Willman had a goal and an assist. Gerry Mayhew tallied a power play goal. Noah Cates notched his second shorthanded goal of the season. Cal O'Reilly had a shorthanded goal and an assist. It was a quiet night for Morgan Frost -- no shots on goal, lost the faceoff that led to the lone Hershey goal -- but he collected his eighth assist of the season on the Mayhew tally on the man advantage.
The Phantoms (3-6-2) have won back-to-back games for the first time this season and are 3-1-0 in their last four matches. The team's four-game road trip ends on Friday when the Phantoms visit the Providence Bruins. The next night, the Phantoms are back home in Allentown to host Springfield at the PPL Center.