Saturday night the Flyers played the first of two back to back games against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Philly. The NHL schedule has been jostled around a bit to accommodate the Olympic break coming up in February. That being said, there will be a rematch between these two teams on Monday night, again in Philadelphia.
Anatomy of a blowout
Many things were not going in the Flyers favor before tonight’s game even started. It’s been a long and emotional week at the Xfinity Mobile Arena. First the explosively energetic game against the Anaheim Ducks featuring the most unlikely cross country rivalry in hockey.
Cutter Gauthier came to town to witness Trevor Zegras lead the Flyers to a rousing victory over his former team. It was a blast but it was not without it’s consequences. Bobby Brink and Jamie Drysdale both left that game due to injury and have not since returned to the line-up.
Thursday night former Flyer Scott Laughton and the Toronto Maple Leafs came to town. Laughton had one heck of a game. He went 95% in the face-off circle winning 19 of 20. He also scored the tying goal before the Leafs went on to win the game in overtime. Travis Konecny was injured in that game. He did not come out for the 3rd period and was not in the line-up tonight against the Lightning.
Samuel Ersson got the start in net for the Flyers tonight. Dan Vladar has been the Flyers stronger goaltender this season. He will most likely be in the net when the Flyers host the Lightning again on Monday night.
Red Hot
The Lightning came into this game having just won eight in a row. Tampa goaltender Andrei Vasileskiy is rolling with a 2.33 GAA and a SV% of .913. Nikita Kucherov has 65 points and is a +23 over 39 games this year. The Flyers although doing surprisingly well so far this season were clearly the underdogs going into this tilt.
Tampa got on the board immediately. Brayden Point won a battle against the boards in the Flyers end. He threw a pass across the slot to Nikita Kucherov who could not have been left anymore wide open directly in front of the Flyers net. He dunked the puck past Ersson from point blank range to kick off a very long night.
Garnet Hathaway
The Flyers bounced right back from Tampa’s opening goal. It was Garnet Hathaway scoring his first goal of the season 4:15 into the 1st period. Hathaway was a presence in this game. Killing penalties, finishing hits, and getting on the scoresheet.
Hathaway dropped the gloves with Declan Carlile starting things off by punching his helmet off and into the air. To be fair they both landed some heavy shots before this one was over. Not even halfway into the opening period and Hathaway had two thirds of a Gordie Howe hat trick going for him.
Hathaway also spent a good portion of the night getting dogged by dirt from the Tampa squad while the officials didn’t seem to take notice. These two teams are really going to love each other by the end of Monday night.
Holy Cow what happened
Things went down hill from that point on. Tampa scored four unanswered goals. The Flyers were down 3-1 going into the final period. There was still hope but Tampa had the opportunity to close that door real quick. And they did exactly that.
Tampa was relentless, Ersson was not sharp, and the Flyers were out of gas. Tampa made their share of mistakes and the Flyers left pucks sitting there. They didn’t have the energy to go after them.
With the Lightning ahead 5-1 Owen Tippett fired a slapshot from the top of the slot. The puck was not settled and the blade of his stick chipped the shot up and over Vasilevskiy. It was an arching knuckleball of a goal but they all count.
Falling apart
Tampa rebounded with two more goals to achieve the final score of 7-2. When games are going as bad as this one was for the Flyers everything starts breaking down. Energy starts leaking, systems unravel, game plans go out the window.
Many of the Flyers defensive mistakes were made at the Lightning blue line. The Flyers were soft at the back-end of the offensive zone allowing Tampa to force pucks out of their own end and break out on odd man rushes that started at their own blue line.
As the game wore on the Flyers were reaching for pucks instead of keeping their feet moving. They were indecisive with the puck. Coverage, positioning, all of the things that just naturally fall apart when you’re getting blown out. Ersson looked more frozen than shell-shocked.
Silver lining
There will be no time for wallowing in this mess. The Flyers will get the chance to redeem themselves Monday night in Philly. That gives them 44 hours to get a bit healthier and come up with a plan to end the now nine game Tampa winning streak.
Redemption has been the running theme of the week so who knows. The Flyers have been a good bounce back team this season. It can’t be much worse than it was tonight, this game was not easy to watch and nobody wants to see a repeat.
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