The 6-2 final score may give you the wrong impression that this game was closer than it actually was. The Flyers 34-24-8 were coming off a one goal victory over the lowly San Jose Sharks and had to shift gears big time to face the Toronto Maple Leafs 37-19-8 at game time.
Head coach John Tortorella was not behind the bench as he was serving out the 2nd of his two game suspension after being ejected from the 7-0 loss in Tampa this past Saturday. The Flyers schedule is really tough from here on out. They are currently still hanging onto 3rd place in the Metropolitan Division. This is the time that this team needs to show some stability, this past week has shown us the exact opposite.
Philly vs Toronto
The Flyers looked up beat and energetic at the pre-game warm up and all of that went out the window as soon as the puck was dropped. The Leafs were playing at a different level and two minutes in they took the lead and never looked back. Auston Matthews fired a shot from the right circle that was helped along its way by Tyler Bertuzzi right in front of the Flyers net.
The shot totals were deceptive throughout the match. They were consistently even but the quality of the chances was totally lopsided in Toronto’s favor. Leafs were piling up in front of the Flyers crease. There seemed to always be at least one of them right on the doorstep. Toronto was spending all of their time in the dangerous areas when they had possession in the Flyers zone. Juxtaposed to that the Flyers were relegated to the corners or around the edges in Toronto’s end.
Toronto made it 2-0 just under ten minutes in to the opening period. Samuel Ersson made a stop and seemed to lose track of the rebound. Ronnie Attard tucked the puck under Ersson to get the whistle. On the ensuing Faceoff the puck took an unfortunate bounce off of Morgan Frost leading to the goal by Pontius Holmberg.
Moments later it appeared the Leafs had scored again. It was a really aimless looking dump towards the net from the side boards that was deflected passed Ersson by Tyler Burtuzzi. A review of the play confirmed that there was a hand pass leading up to the goal and it was disallowed.
Three minutes later Timonthy Lyubushkin skated just over the Flyers blue line and fired a wrist shot at the net that beat Ersson blocker side. Ersson clearly did not look himself again tonight but the Flyers squad as a whole was fairly unrecognizable. The first intermission could not come soon enough.
2nd Period
Samuel Ersson was done for the night as Felix Sandstom started the 2nd period in net. The Flyers were much more stable in the 2nd. Sandsrtom started his night with a beautiful glove save and two big stops on John Travares point blank.
Owen Tippett scored on the power-play just 1:42 into the period. Morgan Frost banged the puck off the back boards Tippett fired the puck past Ilya Samsonov just under the glove and over the pad. The 2nd period was the Flyers strongest. The bleeding had stopped, at least temporarily. They were only down by two goals and there was plenty of hockey to be played.
Still it was obvious this was not the Flyers night. Their passing was not crisp. Many of their shots were either wide of the net or directly into the logo on Samsonov’s jersey. They were having difficulty breaking into the offensive zone. The Leafs were just systematically dismantling the Flyers efforts. Morgan Frost and Bobby Brink in particular were frustrated over and over again by a Toronto team that was onto their tricks and having none of it.
3rd Period
All hope crumbled quickly in the 3rd period. Matthews from just inside the blue line at 4:45. Nylander from the right circle at eight seconds later at 4:53. Then Matthew Knies on a tic-tac-toe play nine minutes in. To say the Flyers were out of sorts by this point would be an absolute understatement. When the Maple Leafs were setting up the passing play that lead to their sixth goal there were three Flyers on the ice without sticks in their hands.
Foerster scored shorthanded at 18:28 cutting the lead to 6-2 with 1:32 left in regulation. Sean Couturier was chasing the puck down the right wing boards. He did not have a stick in his hand at the time either. Someone on the bench handed him one on the way by. Coots to Sanheim to Foerster who scored the late period goal that unfortunately meant little to a game that was so far out of reach.
Extra Credit: There were games at the end of last season after the Flyers were mathematically eliminated where Tortorella chose to watch the games from a different vantage point and had his assistants run the bench. Something was lacking in those games and I chalked it up to the fact that they were somewhat meaningless games and a tired team at the end of a losing season was just lacking inspiration. After these last three games my opinion has changed. There is a spark that is missing when Tortz isn’t behind the bench. That isn’t a slight against anyone on his staff, it’s just different. This is Tortorella’s team.
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