Pickard helps restore calm to frenetic Flyers
PHILADELPHIA >> The power play figures to get better as time goes on, and all gloved fingers are crossed that the penalty kill isn’t as bad as it’s been for the past couple of years.
Those special Flyers foibles aside, who figured that most of the early season concerns would have to do not only with the defense, but specifically with the top pair studs Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gostisbehere?
Six games into the season and the Flyers are not only waiting for that dynamic defensive duo to play like one of the top pairings in the league — which is what they should be — the wait is still on for them to play at least semisolidly.
With a heavy dose of luck and because deep backup goalie Calvin Pickard made one more stop than Florida’s deep backup goalie Michael Hutchinson in a shootout, the Flyers squeezed out a 6-5 victory Tuesday night memorable for only two reasons.
It was Pickard’s first heroic NHL shootout turn since two seasons ago, and it came in a game in which Provorov and Gostisbehere again made way more than their share of over-eager mistakes. They were omnipresent during a horrific 10-minute span late in the second and early in the third period, when the Panthers turned a three-goal deficit into a tied game. It didn’t go unnoticed. “We gave up two breakaways and one Grade-A chance from the slot and that’s all it takes,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “To our players’ credit, they regained some composure in the last 10 minutes of the third and we got going again. But the thought process at the start of the third period, when you give up two breakaways and the chance that (Aaron) Ekblad had coming down the slot at 5-4, that’s not thinking the right way.”
The Panthers’ fourth and fifth goals came with the Flyers’ top defensive pair out of position. Both were breakaway goals for the Panthers. And in between those two goals, Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad had gone right through the Philly defense untouched and somewhat unnoticed and slammed a shot off the post.
Provorov, pinching in along with Gostisbehere a time or two too many against the Panthers’ counterattackers, ranked out as a minus-2 for the night. Meanwhile, the calmer and seldom seen No. 7 defender Christian Folin, getting a start in place of disappointing veteran Andrew MacDonald, somehow was a plus-4. The weird numbers only begin to tell the story of how the Flyers’ best defenders again had a night in which they were trying to do too much too quickly.
“We gave up the good chance that went off the crossbar and then another breakaway right away,” Hakstol said. “That’s our top two guys on the back end. Not being critical necessarily of them, but that tells me that the line of thinking at that point in time is not the right way. You can go back and look at all three of those plays and we didn’t make it real hard for them to come up with those opportunities.”
That said, Hakstol was careful again to point out that after the harrassed starter Brian Elliott had been pulled at 5:06 of the third and the Flyers’ lead down to 5-4 at that point, and after Pickard had to look at another three or four odd-man rushes and an Aleksander Barkov breakaway goal to tie the game, Provorov, Gostisbehere and the rest of the defense finally did settle down.
Despite the Barkov goal, Pickard seemed to play a part in settling everybody down. Or maybe it just looked that way. This guy has nothing to lose in what likely will be a short Philadelphia tenure — well, unless Neuvirth gets hurt again — and who last year was an AHL backup for the eventual Calder Cup winning Toronto Marlies.
“You’ve just got to be ready for anything, for sure,” Pickard said. “It’s a wild game, so you’ve got to think you’re going to have a couple of chances to stop them. Obviously there were a couple right at the start when I got in there, and after that we kind of locked it down . ... We played really good defense then.”
Oh . ... In the future, this guy could be aiming at a broadcast booth job.
Aside from the Barkov breakaway goal at 8:07, Pickard would only be forced to make two more saves in the third period, though one off the post and several near-misses caught his attention, too. And he’d see nothing during a 3-on-3 overtime during which the Flyers had a failed power play. But the lack of work didn’t play a factor in the shootout, as Pickard held strong to prove that in a shootout, two out of three saves ain’t bad.
At least it wouldn’t be on this night, with Jordan Weal’s successful attempt and Pickard’s save on Frank Vatrano making it stick for two points.
There have been easier wins, of course.
“It wasn’t my best shootout either,” Pickard said with a grin, “but I got the job done.”
In the end, that’s all that matters.
So long as the defensemen expected to get the job done on a nightly basis start doing just that.