Late start not enough against Panthers’ Luongo
PHILADELPHIA >> On yet another night in which they let the other guys gain control first, the Flyers would come up a period late and a shot too short Tuesday night in a 2-1 loss to the Florida Panthers.
Despite a mostly solid Brian Elliott net effort and a suddenly voracious offensive appetite in the third period, the Flyers would wind up coming within an Oskar Lindblom shot off the post of tying the game late as they lost for the first time in seven games. Of course, there was a big reason in the other crease that this comeback shot would fall short.
Since Roberto Luongo returned from a nine-game injury absence, the Panthers (7-5-3, 17 points) have gone from last place losers to a solidly suffocating team again. This was the Panthers’ fifth straight win, and fourth in a row with Luongo in the crease.
“He’s a great goalie, he’s been around forever, so he’s really experienced,” Jake Voracek said of the 39-year-old Luongo, now nearly 19 years removed from his NHL debut as an Islander. “He can read the play really well and with his size, it’s really hard to find the holes. So it took a perfect shot to beat him today. I was hoping to get that, one more, because we had those chances. We have to give him a lot of credit.”
It was Voracek who beat the 6-3 and still flexible Luongo 3:55 into the third period with a rocketing one-timer off a nifty pass by Oskar Lindblom.
That was only one impressive exchange by the Flyers during a third period in which they had the Panthers on the run. Problem was, it was the only period in which the Flyers bothered to do that.
“The intensity, I don’t think, was up to what we need it to be,” Elliott said. “I thought we brought it in the third period, but it’s a little late. We hit some posts, we had some chances to tie it up. It’s just unfortunate and frustrating that we didn’t go into extra innings there.”
“We definitely didn’t play our game the first two periods,” Claude Giroux added. “I don’t want to say we took them lightly but we know we can play better and the third we started playing the way we can and we made a push for it. But a little too late.That’s not an excuse. We have to be ready to battle for 60 minutes, not just 20.”
That’s what the Flyers did during their now finished 5-0-1 run, which had come after a rather lousy stretch of early season hockey in which they allowed the opposition to score first in 10 out of 11 games. Not so coincidentally, the Flyers scored first in every game of that 5-0-1 streak.
“If we played that good in the third period we thought we were going to win this game,” Lindblom said. “But we didn’t and we just have to take that into the next game and have a better start.”
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The Flyers’ frequently maligned penalty killing unit gave up another in this game, Aaron Ekblad’s power play goal to start the scoring 8:15 into the second. Elliott’s only other goal allowed came off a sneaky shot by Evgenii Dadonov, who fired a fast wrist shot through Flyers defenseman Christian Folin’s legs.
“I screened Elliott,” Folin said. “(Dadonov) cut back into the middle, but I should have done a better job with my stick.”
Said Elliott: “Those are tough to pick up. It was a good shot.”
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The Panthers’ power play goal came after the first of two Ivan Provorov tripping penalties on a night where the Flyers only incurred three minor penalties. Afterward, Provorov pointed out he’d had a skate collision with Florida’s Nick Bjugstad on his first penalty, saying, “I just fell first, and he tripped over me. That was a bad call.”
It was another disappointing game for Provorov, who may have more expectations on his shoulders than anyone else on his team.
“He’s still a young guy, he’s got a long way to go mental wise,” Voracek said of Provorov. “He’s had ups and downs during the season so far but he’s one of the top defensemen in the league . ... In practice he’s really hard to beat one on one. But I don’t think he’s frustrated. He’s a pro. He wants to be better every day and he will be.”