Flyers’ fabulous comeback ends how it should
PHILADELPHIA >> At the end of another defenseless game day Saturday, it took offenseonly forward star James van Riemsdyk to perfectly sum up how the Flyers should feel after a 6-5 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“Anytime you get a point after being down four goals in the third period,” van Riemsdyk declared, “it’s a pretty good thing.”
Thus the Flyers approach the quarter-pole of their season at a perfectly puzzling 9-9-2. If they were looking for any clues as to the type of team they really can strive to be the rest of the season, hopefully they won’t use this 20th game for any kind of reference point.
Probably not a good idea to listen too much to the summary by their head coach, either.
“Our first two periods were good periods,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “We came out of it on the wrong end of it, obviously. We’ve got to do a little bit more.”
Yes. As illustrated against the Lightning (14-5-1), who had to have played as bad a game as they had all season, the Flyers have to play at least play a little bit better in every facet of the game. It’s no accident that along with their .500ish record (hockey math version), they entered this game ranked 29th of 31 league teams in power play, 30th in penalty kill, 29th in goals-against and goalsagainst average.
Those last two categories should get another boost downward after giving up six goals to the Bolts Saturday.
It’s not only because of their ridiculous injury problems in goal, either. Defensively, from the top forward line down to the third defensive pair, the Flyers have essentially been a defensive mess this season. And now that their top two goaltenders are mending their aging, aching bodies, they have an AHL-caliber goaltending tandem that’s expected to clean up the mess on a daily basis.
Here’s a hint as to how that’s going to go: New starting goalie Calvin Pickard made his sixth start (and eighth appearance) of the season Saturday. He allowed six goals for the second time, and in three other games has allowed four goals.
That’s not good. Overall, Pickard is 3-2-1 with a 4.60 goals-against average and .852 save percentage.
Such hideous numbers are reflective of not only of Pickard’s minor league skills, but the overall sub-par defensive efforts tossed out in front of him and all other Flyers goalies too often in these first 20 games. But then again... “We didn’t give up a whole lot in terms of Grade A opportunities,” Hakstol ascertained. “I’m going back the last couple of games here, we’ve been reasonably solid here. Can we be better? Can we be more airtight? Absolutely. We’ve got to try to do that and try to tighten things up a little bit.”
Just a little bit. Oh, and it wasn’t just defense that was a problem area.
The Flyers bombed Tampa Bay’s minorleague level goalie Louis Domingue from the opening puck drop, outshooting the Lightning 18-7 in a first period. Of course, it was a scoreless first period. By the time they failed to score on a power play in the opening minutes of the second period, the Flyers were 3-for-47 over a stretch of 15 games and a little over one period. Of course, they couldn’t let that outdo the level of incompetency on their penalty kill.
So the Lightning opened the scoring first with a Adam Erne power play goal 6:02 into the second. Cedric Paquette followed at 12:10 for 2-0 then James van Riemsdyk finally broke Philly’s PP schneid and halved the lead. But the Lightning tallied again and after two periods they were being outshot 34-15 while holding a 3-1 lead.
The best was yet to come, as consecutive penalties by Travis Konecny and Claude Giroux gave Tampa a two-man edge, and when Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov scored 11 seconds apart on the power play, it was 5-1. And the Lightning had taken 16 shots on goal. Down four ... and not out?
“Once we did get going after we were in a deep hole we got one, and just got a big burst of momentum,” Hakstol said. “That included the crowd and every(one) on the bench and everything got rolling. Momentum’s a hard thing to explain.”
The magical mystery tour started at 10:24 of the third, when Konecny scored a power play goal that looked like little consolation. But then came another call, and shockingly another power play goal, this one by Sean Couturier. Then the tide built, and Konecny cut it to 5-4 with 4:02 left in regulation. And just 30 seconds later, Wayne Simmonds tied it off a scramble in front.
Domingue seemed in shock, but his teammates got him into overtime ... and of course Simmonds lost his man Anthony Cirelli there, and the Flyers lost when Cirelli scored 1;47 into the extra session.
Four goals scored within a resurrection period of 6 minutes, 4 seconds of the third period, only to lose it in overtime. Conclusions? “Definitely fun that we were able to come back from 5-1 with 10 minutes left and we had chances, too, to kind of take the lead,” Claude Giroux said. “We played a pretty solid game tonight. Obviously, a couple mistakees here or there, but they’re a pretty good team and when you give them a chance to score they’re pretty good at that.” Or... “It sucks that it has to come down to 10 minuts left in the game and you’re down (four) goals, but I think it’s a positive takeaway from the game,” Shayne Gostisbehere said. “Never give up. We got a point out of it. I don’t know if we had any business getting a point tonight, but it shows the true grit of our team.”
Regardless, it’s only one game over a marathon sized schedule that’s only about a quarter complete. At this 20-game mark in mid-November, however, the Flyers certainly can be honest with themselves and accept that in every aspect of their defensive game, almost everybody else in the league is better than they are.
In other words, there’s a whole lot of work to do over the winter.
*** NOTES >> Yes, Picard’s .852 SP is brutal. But it’s better than .727, which is Michal Neuvirth’s save percentage . ... With an assist on van Riemsdyk’s goal in the second period, Claude Giroux tallied career point No. 700 . ... Flyers say the NHL’s statistical data showed this was the first time any league team erased a four-goal deficit to tie a game in the final 10 minutes of regulation. Didn’t get ‘em a win, though.