There was not a whole lot of surprises in Monday night’s contest. The Flyers were shutout by the hosting Tampa Bay Lightning who executed their game plan splendidly. It was a fairly uneventful low scoring defensive battle. The Flyers outshot the Lightning 20-18 and lost by the score of 3-0.
What happened?
Part of what happened to the Flyers was Andrei Vasilevskiy. Not that his shutout performance was anything all that remarkable. In fact it was a pretty easy day at the office for him. He’s a great goaltender and he’s been hot as of late so him just showing up seemed to alter the Flyers game plan a bit.
If Vasilevskiy can see the shot coming chances are he’s going to stop it. His positioning and vision are so on point that he spends a lot of his night getting hit in the logo with pucks. The Flyers are well aware of this so on many occasions they were looking for that extra pass to get him moving side to side.
Tampa was giving the Flyers no space to work with so any slight hesitation looking for that ideal shot gave the Lightning a chance to close in even more. Tampa played this Flyers team well. They worked the Flyers towards the boards on so many entries. Kept them cycling and nibbling around the edges. In front of the Tampa net there was no time or space to create anything dangerous.
Samuel Ersson
It’s a shame Sam picked up this loss tonight because he did pretty much everything he was supposed to in this game. He also did not face a whole lot of rubber but when he did some of the Tampa chances were quite challenging. Ersson has had some rough outings this season this was not one of them. He played a solid hockey game..
The first Lightning goal was a blast from the high slot that was deflected through traffic in front. This is exactly the type of approach you would like to have seen down the other end of the ice.
The second goal came on an odd man rush (we’ll break that down next). And the third was on the empty net in the final moments. Ersson made some big saves for his club and he played well despite getting saddled with the loss.
Waiting out the slide
Back in the day when a defenseman was attempting to cover an odd man rush he would kind of split the difference but in the end he would cover the pass and the goaltender would cover the shot. Over the years it has become more and more commonplace to see the defender drop completely to the ice to cut off the passing lane.
Recently forwards are not just expecting that move but they’re waiting for it so they can use it to their advantage. If they are not already physically committed to making the pass attempt and the defenseman drops they just wait it out. A patient puck carrier will just hang on as the defenseman slides on by and now there is one less opponent to deal with.
Such was the case on the second Tampa goal. The Flyers had two defensemen back but the play quickly turned into a 3-on-2 situation. Emil Andrae dropped to block the lane and Brandon Hagel just waited him out, skated past his body, and threaded the pass to Anthony Cirelli who tapped it home. I am not singling Andrae out just to dog him, he’s been playing some real solid hockey since being called up.
Jamie Drysdale was the other defenseman back. He made a diving attempt at intercepting the pass but it was too little too late. If Ersson did manage to get over to make the save both of his defensemen would have been laying on the ice with three Bolts in deep.
The puck carrier is under no obligation to go through with the pass. More and more you see forwards just hanging onto the puck and waiting for the defenseman to take himself out of the play.
Powerplay
There were not a whole lot of whistles in this game. In fact the Flyers had the man advantage for a grand total of 35 seconds. The call came seven minutes into the 3rd period with the Flyers down by two goals. It could have been the perfect opportunity to get back in this game.
Tampa who totaled 18 shots for the entire game went into total offensive mode on the penalty kill and ended up drawing a Flyers penalty.
The Flyers were not terrible in this game. Tampa had a plan, they stuck to it, and it worked like a charm.
Extra Credit: Curtis Douglas is 6′-9″ and weighs in at 242 lbs. He likes to get into it with NHL tough guys. Tom Wilson set him straight just the other night. Nic Deslauriers schooled him tonight.
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