Vigneault’s changes provide quick answers
PHILADELPHIA » Not that the Flyers were poo-pooing their four-game losing streak early Monday ... OK, they were ... but at least their reasoning had some credence.
Despite essentially being blown out in their last two games, a 6-3 loss in Edmonton to end a lousy Western Canada road swing, and an even worse 4-1 losing result at home Saturday to a lousy Dallas Stars team, a couple of Flyers and their head coach made time after a Monday practice to point out that the Flyers had outshot those two teams by a combined 91-38.
“Look at the highlights ... how many posts we hit and how many empty netters,” Claude Giroux said. “It’s a (matter) of bearing down. When they’re going to go in, they’ll go in a bunch.”
Early on Monday night against the Vegas Golden Knights in what would be a 6-2 victory, that trend continued with the Flyers getting 11 of the first 15 shots on goal of the game. But that goals in a bunch part, that’s a tougher nut to crack.
Yet the Flyers cracked the scoreboard that counts early on a Travis Konecny power play goal, then Kevin Hayes and Michael Raffl scored a pair early in the second period, and the Flyers were off and running against the good Golden Knights.
It seemed coach Alain Vigneault’s player shuffling strategy worked wonders.
Vigneault certainly isn’t above taking a crack at making changes, no matter what the shots board was showing in recent games. He might have waxed positive about his team’s recent play early Monday, but he showed his hand amid the four-game losing streak by switching the lines – resulting in Giroux moving from left wing to center on a reworked top line – and bringing up offensive minded rookies Joel Farabee and Mikhail “Misha” Vorobyev.
Farabee was brought in after scoring three goals and an assist in the first four Lehigh Valley Phantoms games to pump up the Flyers’ third line. And with center Nolan Patrick still out indefinitely due to chronic migranes, Vorobyev was brought in to center the fourth line, with Scott Laughton switching to the wing.
Laughton promptly assisted on the odd Raffl goal.
“We’re doing a lot of good things,” Vigneault said earlier. “The fact that we’re playing well defensively has not stopped us from getting some good looks offensively. Right now for whatever reason, we’re having a tough time finding the back of the net.”
That wasn’t so much of a problem against the Knights and their backup goalie, Oscar Dansk, who would allow two more Flyers goals in that wild second period. But as the Flyers have shown in recent seasons, this frequent missing the net thing can be a chronic issue with them.
“The last two games, I know we didn’t get the result we wanted and we lost both games,” Giroux said. “But if you understand the game you’d understand we played well enough to win the games. Sometimes you don’t get the bounces ... sometimes it’s going to happen like that. And it’s going to happen that sometimes we’re going to play a bad game but we’re going to win.
“But overall I think our game is good.”
That said, Giroux and his teammates went right out and proved it.
••• Farabee was up all training camp and accompanied the Flyers’ regulars to Europe, but after the last exhibition game in Switzerland was told he’d be starting the regular season for the Phantoms rather than in uniform against the Blackhawks in Prague.
Little matter. Farabee, the 19-year-old from Cicero, N.Y. who was the Flyers’ first-round pick
(14th overall) just 16 months ago, learned the way to Allentown, and promptly went there and scored four points in his first four professional games.
In other words, he directions.
“In Joel’s case he went down there with the right mindset,” Vigneault said. “I told him in Lausanne (Switzerland), ‘Go down there with the right focus and I’m sure we’ll see you back here shortly.’
“And that’s exactly what happened.”
Farabee’s mother, maternal grandmother and older brother had recently driven down to watch him with the Phantoms. His mother and father made the long drive for Monday night’s game.
Little matter, for his paternal grandmother lives in Warminster, Bucks County.
“Going down and getting more experience definitely helped me out,” Farabee said. “If you put me on the opening night roster here it probably would have been a stretch. Just going down there and allowing me to play my game definitely helped me.” followed