Mason’s game looks undefined and undefended

In repeating a common refrain about how he thinks his team simply has to be consistent at “playing our hockey,” Shayne Gostisbehere might not have recognized what took place at the Wells Fargo Center Thursday night.

Indeed, the Flyers had just played their game.

Taking a head-shaking series of penalties to get themselves in trouble in the first period, playing as sloppily as ever defensively in the second, Gostisbehere and his Flyers mates helped goalie Steve Mason to a well-deserved bench seat for the third period.

It was only then that the Flyers responded to a goalie switch and

and waves of boos fromthe crowd, and played at least a semblance of the hockey Gostisbehere actually was referring to, the kind they played during a 10- game winning streak earlier in the season.

Doing so sparked a comeback that eventually landed them in a shootout, and Claude Giroux and replacement goalie Mic hal Neuv ir th each found a way to get them out of that with a 5- 4 win over the Vancouver Canucks.

Giroux, who had struggled recently in various shootout attempts, eschewed his typical deke- filled shootout crawl and instead went barrelling toward Canucks goalie Ryan Miller, the active king of shootout winning goalies.

“Just going back and keeping it simple,” Giroux said. “Just shooting it, trying tofinda hole. He’s a good goalie.”

Yet this time Giroux would find a slot with which toscore, and Neuvirth— despite being shaky after coming in for the third — held strong against three Vancouver “triers” to earn the Flyers just their third win in 12 games. But did they really earn it? “At the end of the day we can look at our game again and it’s got to be better,” Giroux said. “We know that. Just overall, offense, defense, everything. We have to play better as a unit of five.”

Perhaps that should be tacked to Mason’s locker when they hit the practice ice Friday morning. The goalie who constructed a

.926 saves percentage over eight starts during the 10game streak allowed Mark us Granlund to gently roll one of his two goals on the night right through his legs.

Other than that, he probably wasn’t as bad as it seemed, if only because his teammates were finding it almost impossible to clear the defensive zone during those first 40minutes.

Not that Mason would freely admit it.

“At the end of the day, I’m not getting the job done,” Mason said. With a nod to having coach Dave Hakstol pull him after the second period with the Flyers trailing 4- 3, Mason added, “I can totally understand where he’s coming from and I’ve just got to work at it to get better.”

Overall, Mason is 14- 14- 6 with a 2.87 goals- against average and. 901 saves percentage. Pretty middling numbers, but getting there has been a roller- coaster ride.

He essentially complained after the game about lack of practice time impacting his performances, but as Hakstol pointed out when Mason’ s comments were relayed to him, “I can’t do anything about the schedule.”

Asked if he felt his season has generally reflected the way his team has played as a whole, Mason said, “I think it’s all connected.

“The team looks good when the goaltender is playing well and the goaltender also looks good when the guys are playing well infront of him,” Mason said. “From a personal standpoint I just have to find ways to be better. It’s pretty simple. I’mnot happy with where my game’ s at right now and the results are showing.”

The same, of course, can certainly be said about and by Mason’s teammates. Their defensive play was generally solid during that late November to mid- December streak of success. The rest of the season, it’s been generally shoddy through wins, losses and the occasional lucky shootout success.

“At the end of the day we can’t look at the results,” Giroux said. “We’ve got to look at the way we’re playing.”