It's not too difficult to deconstruct last night's loss in Madison Square Garden. The Flyers followed an all-too-familiar script that has put the club in the position of having to win tomorrow's regular season finale in order to make the playoffs. Last night:
1) The Flyers got outworked in the first period. After Mike Richards' goal, the club seemed to lose all its energy and focus when it couldn't convert a power play, Dan Carcillo took a careless high-sticking penalty and the Rangers came right back to make it a 1-1 game. The rest of the first period was all Rangers. It doesn't matter whether it was a lack of confidence or cohesiveness. The bottom line is that the Flyers let the first period get away from them.
2) Henrik Lundqvist outplayed Brian Boucher. Not a big surprise here, but Boucher's positioning was a factor in the game-winning goal and he also allowed a stoppable shot to squeeze through pads on the second New York goal.
3) Braydon Coburn got caught napping. Chris Pronger made a costly turnover on Marian Gaborik's game-winner but that was a physical mistake. Coburn's complete misread on the faceoff was a mental mistake, and he's made way too many of those all year. I have come to fear that Coburn is another Karl Dykhuis -- all the physical ability to be a star NHL defenseman but no hockey smarts.
4) Undisciplined penalties contributed to the loss. There is always a fine line to tread with Carcillo, and his high-sticking penalty was of the careless -- not vicious -- variety. Even so, it was a momentum killer early in the game. As for Scott Hartnell, who has been an outright liability to have on the ice for far too much of this season, the forward hurt his club's third-period comeback chances.
5) The Flyers couldn't generate anything when trailing after two periods. After the second period of last night's game, Comcast studio commentator Bill Clement expressed confidence that the Flyers were going to tie up the game in the third period based on how they played in the middle stanza. But the way the club has played all year in these situations, coupled with the Rangers' fine record at protecting leads in the third period, gave me little hope for a successful third-period comeback.
After last night, the Flyers fell to 2-26-1 when trailing heading into the third period. The Rangers, who are even worse than Philly in the third period comeback department (1-25-2), are now 32-1-4 when leading after two periods. It goes without saying that unless the game tomorrow goes into the third period tied, you can almost bank on the outcome based on the score after 40 minutes.
I discussed these issues in today's
Daily Drop at Versus.com.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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