FLYERS-CANES WRAPUP: FLYERS STUMBLE IN CAROLINA, 4-1
The Philadelphia Flyers have had trouble with the Carolina Hurricanes the last couple seasons, after years of domination. Tuesday's game at PNC Arena, won 4-1 by Carolina, followed a now-familiar pattern of games between these two clubs.
The Canes flummoxed the Flyers with aggressive puck pursuit and Philly spent much of the night chasing instead of challenging. Despite the Hurricanes' poor overall record this season -- primarily a product of the team's struggle to score goals -- any team is going to score a few when it generates as many good looks at the net as Carolina did on Thursday. Philadelphia simply turned over too many pucks; sometimes under pressure and sometimes due to apparent mental lapses or communication breakdowns.
Justin Faulk and Jordan Staal scored power play goals for Carolina, who also got even strength goals by Jeff Skinner and Jay McClement. Playing his 500th NHL regular season game, Cam Ward (23 saves on 24 shots) was not tested much until a stretch of about five minutes in the middle stages of the final period.
Flyers goaltender Rob Zepp (31 saves on 35 saves) battled gamely but got very little help from the team in front of him. Defensive defenseman Nicklas Grossmann scored the lone Philadelphia goal, taking a late first-period feed from Jakub Voracek and snapping a left circle shot past Ward to tie the game.
Philadelphia was very fortunate to get the first intermission tied at 1-1. That was mostly due to 14 saves by Zepp in the opening period. The reprieve proved to be temporary. The Hurricanes also outplayed the Flyers in the second and third periods and pulled away to win in a 60-minute effort than even clubs with much better records than Carolina would gladly take any night.
The Flyers played with very little energy throughout the game. While that can partially be chalked up to playing four times in six nights plus a travel day from Philadephia tor Raleigh on day five, fatigue is a weak excuse. The way to combat fatigue is to play a patient and simple game, keeping the puck out of the middle of the ice with good gap control.
On Tuesday night, the Flyers were sloppy with the puck and sloppy in coverages (often too staggered, sometimes too bunched). They generated very little forecheck nor could they carry up ice with any consistency. It's hard to do those things when players aren't skating.
Meanwhile, the Flyers resoundingly lost the special teams battle in this game. They went 2-for-4 on penalty kills and generated little of their own in going 0-for-2 on the power play. Special teams performance is the single biggest reason for the huge disparity between the Flyers' home and road records -- 17-8-5 at home, 9-16-6 away -- this season.
At home, the Flyers have killed penalties successfully at an 82.3 percent clip. That's not spectacular but it's reasonably solid, especially in combination with their 27.4 percent power play to produce a 109.7 special teams index. On the road, the Flyers' penalty kill is an unacceptable 70.2 percent. In combination with an 18.7 percent power play on the road, the Flyers' have an 88.9 special teams index in away games.
In fairness, things had been improving of late on the penalty kill on the road, but Tuesday's game was a backward step. The Hurricanes had too easy of a time moving the puck around the offensive zone and finding shooting lanes.
The Flyers did not lose any ground to the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference wildcard race, as Boston lost in regulation to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night. Philly remains four points behind the Bruins with Boston holding one game in hand and the tiebreaker advantage. The Flyers are two points behind the Florida Panthers, who picked up one point on Tuesday in a shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.