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Wrap: Opportunistic Devils Pick Apart Flyers, 5-0 |
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Wrap: Opportunistic Devils Pick Apart Flyers, 5-0
For the second time in February, the Flyers did not take care of business on home ice in a trap-game scenario. First it was a stumble against the Montreal Canadiens, amidst a string of wins (or least tight games) against top-grade opposition.
On Thursday night, the Flyers fell, 5-0, to the New Jersey Devils. The Devils scored just 13 seconds into the game and, despite a heavy shot disparity that worked against them, played from ahead until the final buzzer.
"At the end of the day, everything that could go wrong, did," Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. "At the end of the day, they made us pay for our mistakes. We made some, they made us pay. We had quite a few good looks, but couldn’t score. We got to be able to make the opposition pay when they make a mistake and we didn’t."
The Flyers are a combined 5-1-2 this season against the teams with the top four records in the NHL (Capitals, Bruins, Blues and Penguins. They also own two victories over Columbus and Carolina; keep competition within the Metro. They own a win over Colorado and one over the Pacific Division leading Canucks. Simultaneously, the Flyers have suffered five regulation losses against the bottom eight teams in the NHL.
The common denominator in the Flyers wins over top teams that has been lacking in the trap games they've lost: attention to detail. The puck management focus and shift-in/shift-out urgency to battle for every foot of space on either side of puck has been in the games where the Flyers had to treat every shift with playoff-like laser focus. In the losses, the Flyers have let entire periods go to waste and played with fire in terms of ill-timed and dangerous lapses that eventually burned them.
Against New Jersey, the Flyers had the majority of the territorial edge and an advantage in scoring chances -- as the 46-19 shot disaparity would suggest -- but they were their own worst enemies and the Devils were opportunistic.
“Everybody expected us to win. We expected to win. It’s a bad loss,” Jakub Voracek said.
Blake Coleman (20th goal of the season) scored on the opening shift of the game. Damon Severson (7th) added a power play goal early in the second period to double the Devils' lead. A Pavel Zacha (6th) shorthanded goal at 1:10 of the third period was a dagger to the Flyers' hopes of a comeback push. Miles Wood (9th) made things worse on a breakaway a few minutes later and then struck again (10th) on yet another New Jersey transitional rush.
Brian Elliott went the first 44:23 of the game, yielding four goals on 17 shots before giving way to Alex Lyon. In relief, Lyon stopped 1 of 2 shots. Mackenzie Blackwood notched a 46-save shutout. He also got help from his posts on no fewer than three occassions.
The bottom line: When you trail a game for 59:47 out 60 minutes, it's hard to claim that you deserved a better fate. The game marked the second time in franchise history the Flyers have been shut out when taking 46 or more shots. The only other occasion was a 48-shot, 3-0 loss to Chicago on February 15, 1969 at the Spectrum.
"They made the red line and the blue line hard. Hard to gain the zone with possession. It was hard to get into the slot to get quality looks. We had a few. I think we hit a post or two, goalie made some nice saves, but they clogged up the middle pretty well. They were off to the races on a few of our turnovers. That was pretty much my summary of the game," Flyers defenseman Matt Niskanen said.
Moments after the opening faceoff, Phil Myers was way too casual going to back to retrieve a PK Subban dump-in, and got beaten to the puck by Travis Zajac. In the meantime, the other Flyers were caught puck watching. The result was Coleman's goal at the 13-second mark. The Devils led the rest of the way.
After the Coleman goal got things off on the wrong foot, the first period was an uneven for the Flyers. They generated periodic pressure and some scoring chances, including a Kevin Hayes breakaway, but also hurt themselves with careless puck management. Most notably, three turnovers on the Flyers first power play of the game led to a pair of breakaways and a 2-on-1 rush for New Jersey. Elliott came up with three separate 10-bell saves to keep the deficit to one goal heading to intermission.
No two ways about it: Elliott needed to make a save on Severson's right circle shot on New Jersey's early second period power play. As the period progressed, the Flyers had all sorts of scoring chances with a 16-5 shot edge, not even including a would-be Jakub Voracek tap-in at the right post that Voracek was not able to pot or a Travis Konecny deflection off the post. Hayes nearly made it three straight games with a shorthanded goal but Blackwood got just enough of it before it squeezed in under his glove and left armpit.
The Flyers had a golden opportunity when PK Subban was called for tripping (actually, slew footing) Voracek. Unfortunately, the Flyers yielded yet another shorthanded rush off a turnover, and Zacha scored from the left circle. It was another stoppable shot but even more so, an inexcusable power play puck management breakdown in a series of them.
“I should have declined," Vigneault half-joked. "After the first one I should have learned my lesson and I didn’t. Should have declined.”
Things got even worse as Shayne Gostisbehere bobbled a puck at the offensive blueline, Wood went off on a breakaway and beat Elliott with a low shot from the slot. That ended Elliott's end. Alex Lyon came in to relieve.
"When you are forcing it at the end, it is going to happen [that you are give up odd-man rushe]. We have to stick with what we are doing. It is pretty frustrating right now," said Flyers captain Claude Giroux, who has gone the last four games without a point.
Yet another turnover and Wood splitting Sanheim and Myers and then beating Lyon made it 5-0. Third period shots were lopsided in Philly's favor (20-3), but meaninglessly so because Philly was chasing the game and the Devils scored on all of their transition chances.
"their goalie did pretty good too, but I think for us just our turnovers were pretty magnified. Breakaways, can’t have that. We left Moose out to dry. He saved us a few times, kept us in the game the first period. For us, we have to bear down a little bit," Gostisbehere said.
The Flyers will have a noon practice on Friday and then take a train to DC. A real tough one is on tap on Saturday, as the Flyers are on the road to take on the Washington Capitals.
"In an 82-game schedule, there’s no excuses, but sometimes there’s gonna be games like this. We got a bad one tonight and what we need to do is go home, get some sleep, come to work tomorrow, have a good practice and get ready for one of the best teams in the league,” Vigneault said.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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