Packed schedule starting to take a toll
Alain Vigneault has seen it before, last season, in fact. Packed schedules aren’t easy for hockey teams, so it takes a studied dedication to the art of conserving energy to successfully survive.
“It’s part of the NHL reality; when you are in these situations where you are playing a lot of hockey, it comes into play where you have to play smarter and simpler,” Vigneault said Saturday after the Flyers fell 4-3 in the last of a three-game set in Pittsburgh. “Both teams, I think, were a little sloppy. But obviously, their third goal was huge for them and a sloppy, wrong-time (line) change for us in the third period cost us that game.”
Vigneault detailed those mistakes, a nearly 90-degree angled shot by Zach Aston-Reese that shouldn’t have pierced goalie Brian Elliott’s armor with just
1:50 to play in the second period, then a mis-timed Flyers line change that led to a winning goal by Jared McCann midway through the third.
“I thought we gave it a pretty good effort, and I thought that third period could have gone either way,” Joel Farabee said. “We have some things to clean up, but we’re right back at it tomorrow. We just have to move on from this one and focus on Washington.”
It’s the only way to play through this pack-theschedule season in a sport not built for it. It takes a toll. Though Vigneault would swear his team’s schedule isn’t any worse than what the Penguins were staring at, virus-postponed games from earlier in the season have to be played at some point for various teams. In an effort to save on travel, the games are packed together. The Flyers played three in Pittsburgh, meaning a five-day stay coming off a few days in Buffalo.
The trip time piles up, too.
The Flyers won back to back games over the Sabres the previous weekend, then onto Pitt ... and back home for a game Sunday at Wells Fargo Center, welcoming back some fans there for the first time in a year. That may pump up the juices for the Flyers, but just as they were Saturday, the Flyers will be a tired team when they take on the Capitals.
Looking ahead, they won’t have much time to catch up on their lost rest, either. Starting with the first game in Buffalo, they’re in the midst of a six games in nine days stretch. That expands to 13 games in 23 days through the meat of this busy March.
The “couple of mistakes” that both Vigneault and Farabee swore was the difference Saturday were mistakes of fatigue. The Flyers made a lot more of them Saturday than “a couple.” Elliott made up for more than a few with some sharp saves. Maybe the turnovers and giveaways that piled up through the afternoon contributed
to the bad goal he allowed that enabled the Penguins to tie the game after two.
“Two teams, same schedule, a little sloppy play from both sides,” Vigneault said. “It’s going to be a fine line one way or the other. Unfortunately, their third goal was a bad goal that I’m sure Brian would like to have back and their fourth goal was a bad change on our part. They made us pay on a couple of our mistakes. We were right there but we made one mistake too many and it cost us the game.”
Smarter and simpler. For the Flyers to hang, for every team playing too many games in too little time during another coronavirusdented hockey season, it’s the only way to survive.
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NOTES >> Michael Raffl left the game early and didn’t return. Vigneault said he suffered a hand injury but the severity of the injury hadn’t been determined. ... Defenseman Phil Myers also missed the game with an injury.