WRAPUP: FLYERS FALL TO DEVILS, DROP SEVEN POINTS OUT OF PLAYOFFS
The Philadelphia Flyers had an opportunity to return home after this weekend just two points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 15 games remaining in their schedule. Instead, they are all but dead in the water.
There is no sugar-coating what happened to the Flyers this weekend. After suffering a late-game collapse in Boston on Saturday that did grave damage to their playoff hopes, they felt sorry for themselves when they faced some adversity in New Jersey on Sunday and essentially stopped competing as they went down to a 5-2 defeat.
The Flyers got Sunday's game to the first intermission tied at 1-1. They recovered from giving up the first goal of the game yet again. Thereafter, the wheels fell off as they yielded an ugly-looking shorthanded goal on a rebound put in to the short-side, followed by a seemingly screened or deflected power play goal for New Jersey. In the third period, the Flyers yielded an inexcusable 2-on-0 breakaway followed by a breakaway counterattack goal after Philly nearly scored.
A play such as this fatal two-man breakaway for New Jersey that started with a Flyers' offensive zone faceoff and ended with Adam Henrique scoring is the mark of a team that failed to compete:
Henrique scored a pair of even-strength goals for the Devils to established leads of 1-0 and 4-1, supplemented by a Jacob Josefson shorthanded goal (2-1), an Eric Gelinas power play goal (3-1) and a Stephen Gionta breakaway goal (5-2). Backup goaltender Keith Kinkaid stopped 25 of 27 shots to earn the win.
Ryan White scored in the first period to tie the game at 1-1 and later assisted on a Michael Raffl shorthanded goal in the third period to cut the gap to 4-2. Those were the lone Philadelphia highlights, although the Flyers had some opportunities to take control of the game prior to the Josefson shorthander.
Steve Mason had an ugly stat line for the game (five goals against on 21 shots) and was not as locked in as he has been for most of the season when healthy. This was the first time in the 2015 calendar year where he's given up more than two goals in regulation, and the first time since Nov. 14 that he's yielded more than three regulation goals. In particular, Mason did not play the sequence ending in the Josefson goal very well.
However, no goaltender in the world was going to bail out the Flyers the way they played as Sunday's game progressed. Mason was hung out to dry repeatedly and simply could not work miracles on this evening.
It is doubtful that Ray Emery (or any other goaltender in the world) would have fared much better than Mason did yesterday. Craig Berube wanted to have his star goaltender out there for both games over the weekend, which is understandable. No doubt Mason was eager to get right back out on Sunday and try to help the team at least come away with three of four possible points despite the disturbing finish to the game on Saturday.
Nevertheless, even heading into the game, it seemed like the situation called for Mason to get a respite. It had been a brutally tough eight days -- a home win against the Rangers on national television, Carnival day, trade deadline day, overtime game against Calgary, a home win over St. Louis, all the emotions tied into the sudden departure of goaltending coach Jeff Reese (with whom Mason was very close) and then the extremely draining overtime loss to Boston.
There is a reason why teams carry two goaltenders. As long as Emery (who has been battling a lower-body injury, but Mason himself is recently returned from arthroscopic knee surgery) was physically able to play, he might have been the savvier choice for Berube to make for the game. As things turned out, it probably didn't matter. However, I still don't understand why the Flyers did not at least change goalies either for the start of the third period or after the 2-on-0 breakaway goal -- not as indictment of Mason but simply as a message to the team.
The Flyers did a lot of weak stick-checking and the defensive support just wasn't there as players ended up on the wrong side of the puck. Philly was slow on the draw both physically and mentally. Setting a bad tone for the game, the first Henrique goal started with Mark Streit succumbing to the New Jersey forecheck and then kicking a bouncing loose puck directly to the eventual goal scorer in the slot.
The entire Flyers team looked fatigued in New Jersey, both physically and mentally. The Flyers had the beaten-down look of a team that knew deep in its heart that the season had probably slipped away for good on Saturday.
Hockey teams are comprised of human beings, not robots. Quite frankly, even if the Flyers had won in Boston on Saturday, it was probably going to take a wave of carry-over adrenaline and perhaps a bit of latter-game puck luck to beat the Devils on Sunday.
With that said, the most disappointing aspect of Sunday's game is that the Flyers stopped playing for one another. The game got out of hand because they ceased to compete. That is never acceptable.
In the bigger picture, the Flyers are buried in the playoff race because they constantly find ways to lose on the road. The club is 9-18-7 in away games, which makes it virtually impossible to be a playoff team no matter how good they are at home (the Flyers have the NHL's 11th-best home record and the sixth best in the Eastern Conference).
The single biggest reason why Philly is so lousy on the road and so much better at home is a 69.8 percent penalty kill on the road, compared to a solid 83.3 percent at home. It's not the only reason, but it's a biggie.
The Flyers will take a complete off-day on Monday. On Tuesday, they will host the Dallas Stars.
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SCOUTING THE STARS
The Dallas Stars fell out of the Western Conference playoff race in the first half of the season and has not been able to pull themselves back into the chase. They still have all the same strengths and weaknesses the Flyers saw firsthand back on Oct. 18.
The Stars of 2014-15 have essentially been the Danny DeVito twin to the New York Islanders' Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can dress them up the same and they are born of the same concept but the results have been diametrically opposite.
Both the Islanders and Stars like to play a high-tempo game and attack with speed. Both clubs score a lot of goals (each average 3.09 goals per game) and both have power plays in the 18 to 19 percent range.
Both clubs also yield a lot of goals. The main difference is that the Stars (ranked 29th in the NHL with a team 3.29 goals against average) hemorrhage) too many goals against to outscore their mistake. The 23rd-ranked Islanders (2.78 GAA) have been able to overcome their 29th-ranked penalty kill by dominating at five-on-five (7th-ranked even strength GF/GA ratio) and rank 11th on the power play. The Stars give up so many 5-on-5 goals that they are ranked 24th in GF/GA ratio at even strength.
Dallas' team defense is significantly worse than the Flyers. They constantly get pushed around in their own end of the ice, with opposing forwards able to set up shop around the net with impunity. The Stars are even more prone to turnovers in dangerous areas of the ice. Meanwhile, the Stars' goaltending this season has been spotty.
Kari Lehtonen, who has never beaten the Flyers in his NHL career, had been a rock of consistency for the Stars in past seasons when healthy. This season, he has extremely inconsistent. The big Finn been unusually prone to short-side goals and failing to track long-distance shots. In general, he hasn't come up with momentum saves when the Stars have needed them. Twice within the span of a month, Stars head coach Lindy Ruff singled out Lehtonen's play as something that was dragging down the team.
The Stars recently acquired Jhonas Enroth from the Sabres as a rental in the hopes of upgrading their backup goaltending to the point that perhaps Enroth could even push Lehtonen for playing time. Thus far, however, Enroth has been mediocre in his own right.
Dallas just got top scorer Tyler Seguin back in the lineup on Saturday after missing 10 games with a knee injury. He scored twice in a losing cause against Tampa Bay. The club is currently missing defenseman Trevor Daley, who had been having a career year offensively and scored a pair of power play goals against the Flyers in the previous meeting this season. Standout rookie defenseman John Klingberg, who had not yet been called up to the NHL when the Flyers played in Dallas back in October, is day-to-day with a lower-body injury sustained in Saturday's game.
When the Flyers and Stars met in Dallas on Oct. 18, Philly prevailed in a 6-5 overtime win in Dallas on Saturday night to collect their first win of the 2014-15 regular season. The Flyers trailed in the third period and came back to tie and eventually win the game.
Failure to close out games in the third period has been a season-long problem that has plagued the Stars. Not even multi-goal leads have been safe on many nights.