Van Riemsdyk scores 2, Flyers rout Eichel-less Sabres 6-1
It was easy to alibi the state of the Buffalo Sabres Thursday night, simple to list a couple of reasons why this Atlantic Division contender took a night off to revisit their gory days of the good, old 20-mid-teens. In a word in recent years, the Sabres were pathetic. Or at least almost as brutal as they were for most of this game at Wells Fargo Center, which ended in a 6-1 Flyers victory hug.
The Sabres, fresh off playing the night before in Toronto, learned after warmups that Jack Eichel wouldn’t be available. That would be the guy who had rung up 24 goals and 50 points over his first 35 games of the season, the primary reason Buffalo was the second-best team in a division with which the big, bad Boston Bruins have already run away.
With the news that Eichel needed an injury pass, the Sabres seemed to shrug their collective shoulders in acceptance of a third straight defeat.
They pretty much stood around the first two periods while the Flyers skated circles around them, to the delight of their Gritty-bombed fans and corporate guests were were in rapture of the latest animation marvels on the still-new Big Screen scoreboard.
To add to the bombing on ice, the Flyers scored three of their goals by bouncing them off Sabre bodies, leading to a 6-nil showing by the second intermission that even this season seemed rare.
But rare has been the home game in this Philadelphia campaign that didn’t end in at least some kind of celebration. For the Flyers are 12-2-4 in their South Philly dates so far, a pace that hasn’t been seen in years.
With Christmas coming but the mid-point of their season still seven games away, the Flyers need just seven more home wins to match their 2018-19 home total.
Of these 18 home games, they have outscored the competition 67-40.
“It’s a funny thing, I don’t know if it’s psychological sometimes at home,” van Riemsdyk said. “You try to have the same approach no matter what, but sometimes, for whatever reason, it just goes better in a certain way there. Maybe guys are more comfortable in their routine, and in a lot of games at home this year AV (coach Alain Vigneault) has been been good about letting us get our rest. We haven’t been morning-skating as much. So maybe that’s part of it, too, I don’t know.
“But certainly we’ve been really good and really strong at home. We want to make this a tough building for teams to come into and play.”
That’s exactly what the Flyers were when van Riemsdyk was an up-andcoming NHL newcomer. During his rookie season of 2009-10 the Flyers won 24 times at home, despite a regular season of repeated injuries that had them only able to make the playoffs – and subsequently ride all the way to the Stanley Cup finals – with a last-game shootout win over the Rangers.
The next two seasons they won 22 home games each.
Even in the subsequent slide through the rebuilding seasons (that’s what they were no matter what ex-GM Ron Hextall called them), the Flyers kind of kept pace, winning 23 games in each of
2014-15 and 2015-16, winning 25 home games in
2016-17, then 22 the following season.
“I think you have that psychological advantage when teams come in here knowing they’re playing a very good team that’s going to play a strong game,” van Riemsdyk said. “That’s something that plays in your favor as the year goes on.”
But the slide set in last season, when despite a van Riemsdyk return, the Flyers went just 19-18-4 at home and 18-19-4 on the road, falling far short of a playoff appearance as a result. The home edge was duller than ever.
“Yeah, but obviously last year, not a lot went our way at home, on the road, whatever it was,” van Riemsdyk said. “We just didn’t do a good enough job in general. So I don’t know if you can point the finger at home vs. road ... but this year in general we’re way more consistent in our approach game to game.”
After a slow start to the season that saw van Riemsdyk get demoted to a checking line and taken off the top power play, his recent resurgence has almost followed a home path. Against the Sabres he scored twice, and has chalked up four goals in his last four games,
10 points over his last 11 games.
With a series of injuries and Oskar Lindblom’s cancer diagnosis, the Flyers have really been challenged this month, losing their last three road games in Colorado, Minnesota and Winnipeg along the way. But upon returning home, they turned on a dime and have won a pair of games over Anaheim and Buffalo to a cume of
10-2.
Just a coincidence? “Sure, it’s nice to play at home,” Carter Hart said, “but we travel the day before to go to road games. So there’s really no excuse to have any disadvantages on the road. We don’t do anything differently.”
At least they try not to. But the Flyers in recent seasons have occasionally been guilty of getting too hyped for some home games, too often getting caught up in the moment when the fans were really voicing their support.
You know, back when there were a lot of them in the building.
“You’re not trying to play a slow, steady game at home,” Travis Konecny said. “Sometimes there tends to be a little more excitement in the building. But you almost want to play that road style. It’s not always for the fans, you’re just trying to get the two points. You don’t want that run and gun game.”
Maybe not, but by streaking at home again, the Flyers seem ready to make a long run toward the postseason.