Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Flyers prefer to ignore ramifications of rout
What, the Flyers worry? Claude Giroux, smiling easily after a Thursday practice at PPG Paints Arena, less than 24 hours after suffering the humiliation of a 7-0 Game 1 defeat to the Penguins there.
Travis Konecny, a second year player absorbing playoff pressure for the first time, similarly shrugging it and that ridiculous loss off as if they were mere annoyances.
Maybe that’s what they’re telling themselves?
“It doesn’t matter,” Konecny said. “It’s 1-nothing them. That’s all it means.”
And if you don’t believe this playoff newcomer, how about the experienced captain?
“It’s one game,” Giroux said. “Obviously it’s not a pretty one. But we’ll put that one behind us and get ready for Game 2 here.
“It’s good to kind of keep it in your mind a little, but yeah, we have to move on. They’ve got to beat us four times, right? So we’re ready for Game 2 and if we roll home at 1-1 we’ll be pretty happy with that.”
As for the lingering effect of that first game rout, the part that you would think would stick sorely to the Flyers’ younger players and maybe to 33-year-old goalie Brian Elliott, Giroux again equated it with any other kind of loss.
Asked what would be worse, the 7-0 defeat or a Game 1 loss in overtime, Giroux cracked, “I don’t know, they both suck.
“When you lose in overtime in the playoffs, it’s a tough one,” he added. “You start thinking, ‘What if? What if?’ And it was pretty ugly yesterday, but guys are moving on here.”
So at least Giroux indicated there was something to be learned about the Penguins’ dominant victory from the night before, a freefall of a game that began with a Bryan Rust goal off a so-so rebound that Elliott allowed to bounce off his chest and slip into the slot just 2:38 into the game.
It got uglier from there, Carl Hagelin scoring on a deflection at 10:07, then Evgeni Malkin exiting the penalty box, weaving down through three clueless Flyers and scoring just four minutes later.
The Flyers not only couldn’t keep them from scoring, they could do almost nothing to slow down Penguins from rolling into the attack zone unimpeded.
There’s something that definitely was part of the Thursday curriculum in Dave Hakstol’s video class.
“I think in our neutral zone, we can do a better job of slowing them down,” defenseman Andrew MacDonald said. “They come through with lots of speed. They hit guys for redirects. That’s a staple of their game and something they’re really good at.”
But MacDonald, too, thought the ills of Game 1 are fixable.
“I think it’s more of getting to play the way we’re capable of playing,” he said. “I don’t think last night was indicative of that at all. It’s a frustrating loss but at the end of the day it’s one game. It’s not about who scores the most goals in the series, it’s about who wins four the fastest.”
Though he dared not break one of his golden rules and make any premature roster announcements, it appeared by the lines running in practice Thursday that Hakstol will start Game 2 with essentially the same lines, defensive pairs and goalie that went through the pain of Game 1 Wednesday night.