Every team has to have an identity. So far, the identity of the 2011-12 Philadelphia Flyers seems to be that of a club that rarely does anything halfway. When they come ready to work, they play at a very high level. When they play a clunker, it's absolutely horrid.
There is something about playing Winnipeg that seems to bring out the worst in the Flyers. Philly has now dropped nine of the last 10 games against the Thrashers/Jets, and many of the games have been of the wide-open variety.
Plain and simple, the Flyers lost yesterday's 6-4 decision in Winnipeg because they were so sloppy and undisciplined in the first period and early in the second. One would have hoped that after the 9-8 game the teams played in their first meeting that the Flyers would have come out paying more attention to detail on team defense.
Instead, the coverages were sloppy, they got themselves into penalty trouble and the recently stellar penalty killing also suffered a letdown. Apart from Chris Pronger's blast that led to the Flyers' first goal of the game, yesterday's tilt was an especially brutal game for the veteran defenseman. Of course, giving up 6 goals is a team effort, and the Flyers collectively stunk on the defensive side of the puck.
Sergei Bobrovsky has had trouble making momentum saves in his young career, and two of the goals he allowed yesterday (Bryan Little's second goal, and the Dustin Byfuglien side angle goal that somehow hit Bobrovsky's leg and went in through the five hole) were stoppable.
The whole sequence that ended with Winnipeg's empty net goal was a giant mess. I'm still not sure why, with nearly 1:20 left in the game and the faceoff in the neutral zone, the Flyers were even thinking of pulling Bobrovsky until the puck was deep in Winnipeg territory much less near the defensive blueline. Couple that with an awful turnover and Nik Antropov finding the net from long distance -- offside or not -- and it was an exclamation mark on a game the Flyers deserved to lose.
On the flip side, the Flyers once again showed their resilience in battling back when they seemed hopelessly out of the game. Once the score got to 5-2, it felt like they had at least an outside chance at a comeback given what happened the first time the clubs met.
Lo and behold, Matt Read shaved two more goals off the deficit in the third period and Philly had a fighting chance. Read and Scott Hartnell canceled out the absence of Jaromir Jagr with two goals apiece. Having No. 68 in the lineup likely would not have had any bearing on yesterday's outcome.
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I don't know if Peter Laviolette was playing a hunch, trying to give Sergei Bobrovsky a second crack at the Jets after lasting just one period (through little fault of his own) in the first game, or else he wanted to shield Ilya Bryzgalov from the wrath of Winnipeg fans.
The coach said something about "goalie rotation" and keeping Bobrovsky sharp, but that was clearly nonsense. Bobrovsky just started two games ago and, with a game upcoming on Monday against a Carolina club the Flyers have handled twice, there was a seemingly better opportunity to give the young backup some work if the coach was so inclined.
Whatever the rationale, the choice of starting goalie yesterday was questionable. I don't know if Bryzgalov -- coming off the emotion of the Phoenix game on Thursday and having fared poorly in relief of Bobrovsky in the first game against Winnipeg -- would have had a good game yesterday, either.
However, Bryzgalov would still have been my choice to start yesterday, if the decision were up to me. I'd have written the same even if Bob had played a stellar game yesterday; except that I would given Laviolette kudos for pushing the right button when logic seemed to dictate going with the usual starter (who has been on a roll ever since last Winnipeg game) to try to help the team break its string of losses against the Jets.
As for the decision to start Jody Shelley over Andreas Nodl against a team that does not dress a true enforcer, that was apparently dictated by Nodl's knee not quite being ready for game action yesterday.
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