After last night's collapse against the Rangers, Flyers head coach John Stevens insisted that he "liked a lot of the things we were doing" in the game prior to the third-period implosion.
In reality, despite the 3-2 lead that Philly carried into the third period, the Flyers performance through the first 40 minutes of the game left something to be desired.
* The Flyers were outhit by a two-to-one margin in the first period (6-3) and were also guilty of seven giveaways to three by the Rangers. Not the tone you want to set in a game where you are the team with something to play for. Philly did cut down on the turnovers (two) in the middle period, which was the team's best period of the game.
* Philadelphia took several awful penalties last night. Arron Asham let himself get goaded by Sean Avery into a horrendous cross-checking penalty. The Flyers were also guilty of an offensive zone penalty and a lazy neutral zone hooking penalty.
* The Flyers gave up their first shorthanded goal of the season (ruining their bid to join the 1975-76 Canadiens as the only team to avoid a SHG the entire season) because of some loose play on the powerplay.
Another note: The Flyers' problems managing the salary cap this season ended up playing out on the game-deciding sequence last night. Emergency defenseman Jamie Fritsch got exposed on the rush in which Blair Betts scored the game winner. He wasn't the direct culprit for the goal, but he didn't look very good on his coverage of Aaron Voros. Fritsch only played 4:34 (nine shifts) the entire game, and probably shouldn't have been on the ice midway through the third period of a tied game. By the way, Fritsch somehow ended up being on the ice for two Flyers goals and the fateful Betts tally in those nine shifts.
My full recap of last night's game is available at
Philadelphiaflyers.com. Tomorrow I will have a preview blog of the Flyers-Penguins series.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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