WRAPUP: FLYERS LAPSES END UP IN NET REPEATEDLY IN 6-3 LOSS TO BLUES
In a game that was reminiscent of the way they played for the first six weeks of the 2015-16 season, the Philadelphia Flyers paid dearly for virtually every breakdown in a 6-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues at the Scottrade Center on Wednesday night. The game was a winnable one for the Flyers, who held a 1-0 lead in the first period and 3-2 edge in the third but ended up getting steamrolled on the scoreboard by the time the night was through.
Wayne Simmonds (17th goal of the season), Nick Cousins (fourth) and Brayden Schenn (10th, power play goal after a disallowed would-be Flyers tally) scored in a losing cause. Philly was held to just nine shots through two periods before meaninglessly outshooting the Blues 11-5 in the process of getting outscored 1-4 in the third period. Robby Fabbri notched a hat trick, started with a power play goal and completed by an empty net goal, for St. Louis. Kevin Shattenkirk (power play) and David Perron also scored for the Blues.
The problem wasn't goaltending per se, although neither goalie had standout games. Likewise, while there was a social media hyper-focus on breakdowns that were specific to Flyers defenseman Andrew MacDonald (who had an undeniably rough night), he had plenty of company.
Philly scored three times against Carter Hutton (17 saves on 20 shots) despite low shot totals on chance. In similar fashion, Blues put five pucks past Steve Mason on 24 shots and scored on each of their first three shots in the third period. However, Philly desperately needed a momentum save or two on this night, and got only one -- which was followed moments later.
The bigger issue was lack of attention to detail -- signals getting crossed in communication, failed clearing attempts, turnovers, failure to box out, lost coverages, etc. -- and seemingly every lapse ending up in the back of the net. The penalty kill, a big strength during the Flyers' fast-fading 10-game winning streak -- the team is 1-3-1 since then -- broke down twice in the first period after struggling against New Jersey in the final game before the Christmas break. The Blues also blocked 21 Flyers shot attempts while Philly mustered just 10 blocks of their own. “Tonight we just wanted too easy of a night,… Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol said to the attending media in St. Louis. “We wanted to play too easy of a game. We have to be better, and we’ll address that."
The first two St. Louis goals by Shattenkirk and Fabbri were screened power play shots that Mason did not see. The goalie had no prayer on the first one, while the second one was tough but not impossible to track in time. The second two were nasty deflections. The fifth St. Louis goal saw a forward (Cousins) beaten badly off the walls and a Fabrri goal scored short side from a high-danger area near the lower hashmarks. The final one was the empty netter.
A nice tic-tac-toe passing sequence from Schenn to Travis Konecny to Simmonds carved up the Blues' defensively and left Simmonds with a tap-in goal near the right post. Philly had the game's first goal just 3:25 after the opening faceoff.
For the most part, the Flyers played decently through the first 15 minutes of the first period. But then they took a couple of bad penalties, which was followed by lax penalty killing, and saw the Blues take a 2-1 lead to the first intermission.
With Claude Giroux in the penalty box for holding, Mason was part of the communication breakdown on the first goal. With no teammates around, Mason weakly paddled a puck directly to the opposition and the Flyers never got the puck back after the initial draw. Shattenkirk took a drop pass from Alex Steen and ripped a shot from high in the offensive zone past a heavily screened Mason, who had Jori Lehterठand others obscuring his line of vision at 15:01.
A Roman Lyubimov hooking penalty led to the Blues taking a 2-1 lead at 19:48 of the first period. Alex Pietrangelo split MacDonald and Ivan Provorov over the middle and went right in Mason. The Flyers' goalie authored perhaps his lone potential momentum save of the game but the Blues kept control of the puck as MacDonald's soft attempted clearing attempt went directly to Colton Parayko. Receiving a pass in the high slot, Fabbri wristed a shot through a David Perron screen before MacDonald arrived to attempt to nudge Perron aside.
The Flyers were outshot, 9-4, in the second period but got the stanza's only goal. At 4:32, a Provorov point shot was tipped by Cousins, hit off the leg of Blues defenseman Carl Gunarsson and went into the net. If Hutton had stopped the double deflection, it would have been sheer luck. Konecny earned his second assist of the game.
Philly took a short-lived 3-2 lead at 4:13 of the third period after overcoming a disallowed goal due to a hasty whistle. Completing a sequence that started with a nice give-and-go between Shayne Gostisbehere and Simmonds to get set up off the rush, Schenn took a cross-ice feed from Gostisbehere at the left hash mark. He quickly released a shot that beat Hutton high to the short side.
The Blues needed less than two minutes to re-tie the game after seemingly losing an offensive right circle faceoff. On their first shot of the third period, Perron deflected a Parayko point shot into the net at 5:53.
St. Louis then took a 4-3 lead at 7:13. Upshall outworked MacDonald for body position in front of the net and re-directed a Joel Edmunson shot past Mason. The Blues had two goals on two shots.
At 15:01, the Blues scored a demoralizing goal that made it three tallies on three shots. Fabbri peeled away from Cousins on the boards, moved into the left circle down just outside the hash marks and beat Mason to the short side to establish a 5-3 edge. Fabbri added a weakly contested empty net goal off a St. Louis breakout at 17:04. Dmitrij Jaskin and Paul Stastny assisted.
Sorting through a travel problem after Christmas, Sean Couturier returned to the Flyers' lineup after missing 16 games with a lower body injury. He recorded one credited hit and went 8-for-17 on faceoffs. Veteran defenseman Nick Schultz dressed for the first time since Nov. 11, as Brandon Manning was a healthy scratch.
Held off the scoresheet, Giroux went 21-for-31 on faceoffs and was credited with two takeaways. He was blocked on both of attempted shots in the game.
The Flyers return to action on Friday, visiting the San Jose Sharks.
"We’re not going into easy places to play here the rest of this road trip. We’ll sort it out and get back to work tomorrow, and that’s the bottom line," Hakstol said.
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WJC, PROSPECT UPDATES
* In Thursday's preliminary round games at the World Junior Championships, Team Czech Republic (featuring Flyers prospect David Kase) takes on Team Denmark, Team Russia (German Rubtsov and Mikhail Vorobyov) opposes Team USA (Tanner Laczynski), Team Sweden (Felix Sandström and David Bernhardt) plays arch-rival Team Finland, and Team Canada (Philippe Myers and Carter Hart) aims to avoid any letdown against struggling Team Latvia.
* In Wednesday's games, Laczysnki scored the first Team USA goal and Flyers goaltending prospect Matej Tomek turned back 45 of 50 shots in the Americans' 5-2 win over Slovakia. Earlier in the day, Sandström stopped 13 of 15 shots and Bernhardt recorded his second assist of the tournament in Sweden's 4-2 win over Switzerland.
* The Lehigh Valley Phantoms, who saw their five-game winning streak snapped on Monday, got back on the winning track in a 4-2 road win over the Rochester Americans on Wednesday night. Robert Hà¤gg (second goal of the season), Mark Zengerle (seventh and eighth goals) and Greg Carey (15th) scored for the Phantoms, while Travis Sanheim recorded an assist on the first Zengerle goal to extend his point streak to three games. The rookie defenseman has six points (four goals, two assists) in his last seven games. Rookie goalie Alex Lyon took a shutout into the third period and finished with 14 saves on 16 shots.
* SHL: Flyers forward prospect Oskar Lindblom scored the game-winning goal late in the third period of Brynà¤s IF Gà¤vle's 3-1 road win over Rögle BK à„ngelholm on Wednesday. With 27 points (nine goals, 18 assists) in 29 games, Lindblom is tied for second in overall scoring in the SHL. Alexander Appleyard pointed out on Twitter that the 20-year-old Lindblom in on pace for 48 points this season: The only player age 20 or younger in the history Elitserien/SHL to surpass 48 points was the legendary Kent Nilsson. For context, it should be noted that the league was different in the past -- quite tough for even the most gifted of teenagers and 20-year-olds to get ice time at the top level, and arguably better depth of opposition leaguewide -- but it is still a very impressive pace for Lindblom.