Frustrating Night for the Flyers in Philly

Date Published: 1-20-2023

Photo Credit: FNG’s Rob Windfelder

Coming into tonight’s game the Chicago Blackhawks had won a total of 12 games at the midway point of this current NHL season. They have not won a regular season game in Philly since November of 1996. That is not a typo. The Hawks would be starting former Flyer goalie Petr Mrazek who has 4 wins and a 4.17 goals against average this season. The Flyers have been super hot as of late winning 8 of their last 10 games. So in most towns you hear all that and you figure the home team totally has the edge. But you know what it can be like here in Philly. No matter which professional sports team is playing, matchups like this one almost always seem to end up in the loss column. It sometimes feels like Philly is the place where slumps go to die.

What Happened?

The Flyers opened the scoring in the first period. Morgan Frost showed some “shoot first mentality” forgoing two passing options to rip one in off the crossbar. From that point on no other Flyer followed his lead. They had multiple odd man rushes that never generated a shot on net. There was a lot of broken passing plays, a lot of shots wide, and just a lot of unfinished business all over the ice. There were plenty of scrums in front of the net with Mrazek out of position and piles of dudes in the crease and the puck just refused to go in. Many of the Flyers passing plays just ran out of ice and left them shooting from improbable angles at, or even behind the goal line. They had tons of chances, a lot of close calls, and if it were horseshoes or hand grenades it would have been a really close game.

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On the other hand Chicago had fewer chances, fewer shots, and a lot less to work with. However the chances that they did get they made count and that’s how this night went down. Some of their goals they really had to work for, and they did, and they got it done. Final Score: Blackhawks 4 Flyers 1.