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UPDATE 1 PM
The Flyers have recalled Brian Boucher from Adirondack. It is being said that Michael Leighton has an upper-body injury. The blog sections below were written prior to the announcement.
Boucher figures to start one of the next two games for the Flyers; more likely Tuesday's game in Winnipeg than tomorrow's game in Toronto.
******
As long as two teams compete with each other and the game is played by human beings rather than automatons, not every win is going to be a masterpiece of total domination. In a league in which parity reigns, most games are more or less up for grabs rather than one side imposing its will for 60 minutes.
The Philadelphia Flyers' just-completed four-game homestand consisted of one well-played win against Tampa Bay sandwiched in between less-than-perfect wins over Carolina and an uneven performance in a shootout loss to Florida. The bottom line was that Philly took seven of eight possible points before heading out on an extremely grueling six-game road trip that could hardly have been more diabolical both in its logistics and overall level of difficulty.
Yesterday's 4-3 overtime win against the Carolina Hurricanes wasn't always pretty. Not everything went according to plan, and the match showed there is still plenty of room for improvement before the team could be said to be firing on all cylinders. But that's OK for right now. The same could be said for most every team in the league, including the ones the Flyers are chasing in the standings.
The over-arching thing that I liked about yesterday's game was Philly's resiliency. Time and time again, the Flyers would face some adversity and potential frustration, whether through Carolina's doing, a sudden miscue or some sheer bad luck. Instead of collapsing, Philly buckled down.
FIRST PERIOD
Entering yesterday's match, the Flyers were in a precarious situation in which their confidence and execution could have gone either way. Philly was coming off a game in which they had blown a third-period lead against Florida after a dominant but scoreless overtime, had a dud of a skills competition to let a point slip away.
Coming in, the Flyers' game plan was to get off to a strong start right from the opening shift (as opposed to the sluggish start to the Florida game). Instead, this is what happened within the opening 17 seconds:
* In his first shift back in the lineup after a three-game absence due to a concussion, Wayne Simmonds committed a bad turnover just inside the Philadelphia blueline. Ilya Bryzgalov had to make a save and freeze the puck at about the 12 second mark.
* Peter Laviolette made a quick line change for the defensive draw. The Claude Giroux line and Braydon Coburn-Bruno Gervais defense pairing came off the ice, and the Sean Couturier line and Kimmo Timonen-Luke Schenn pairing (i.e., the Flyers' shutdown units) came out on the ice.
* Couturier lost the ensuing faceoff cleanly to Eric Staal. The Carolina center drew the puck back to Joe Corvo at the right point.
* Bryzgalov let out a big, fat rebound into the slot; too far for the defense to clear.
* Jiri Tlusty, mired in a goal drought that spanned back to March 24 of last season, was left unmarked off the draw and claimed the rebound. He then snapped a shot past Bryzgalov.
Seventeen seconds had elapsed, and already the Flyers had yielded a goal. Already, there had been a defensive zone giveaway, an important lost faceoff, a less-than-stellar goaltending sequence, a coverage lapse and a coaching strategic move that blew up in Philly's faces.
It would have been very easy for the Flyers to dig themselves into an even deeper hole after such a disastrous start to the game. Instead, they took a deep breath and settled down quickly. That became an ongoing theme to yesterday's game.
While still trailing 1-0, the Flyers had a lengthy 5-on-3 power play. They generated excellent puck rotation and had several good looks at the net. But they got a little bit unlucky as shots from Kimmo Timonen and Claude Giroux got past goaltender Cam Ward by ticked off the inside goal post and stayed out of the net.
Given the Flyers' scoring problems this year - two or fewer goals scored in nine of the first 11 games of the season -- the team was once again at a potential unraveling point. Rather than yielding to frustration, Philly kept plugging away.
When a player is an offensive slump, he rarely magically turns things around in one game. Instead, it usually happens over multiple games, and begins by generating scoring chances that don't end up in the net.
In the Florida game, there were signs that Brayden Schenn and Jakub Voracek were starting to emerge from their early-season doldrums. Voracek bagged a power play goal in that game but his line with Schenn wasn't able to light the lamp at five-on-five. Still, it was a step in the right direction. Yesterday, the duo struck paydirt.
At the 13:52 mark of the first period, Schenn flashed across the slot and re-directed a Timonen point shot past Ward to tie the game at 1-1. Voracek earned the secondary assist on the play.
The Flyers ended up outplaying Carolina for the balance of the opening period, skating off with a 1-1 tie but outshooting the Canes, 14-9, while settling in defensively after the horrid opening seconds of the game.
SECOND PERIOD
In the second period, shots were tied at 8-8, but Philadelphia was once again the better team for the balance of the 20-minute stanza. Once again, they dealt with some adversity both of the opposition-created and self-made varieties. But they won the period on the scoreboard, 2-1, to take a 3-2 lead to the second intermission.
The middle stanza opened the same way the first period did. Simmonds once again committed a giveaway in a precarious area near the defensive blueline. Unfortunately, the entire Giroux line really did not have its A-game at five-on-five for the majority of the game. They never really got in synch at even strength; which was something that Danny Briere readily admitted in the locker room after the game.
Thankfully for the Flyers, other lines picked up the slack. Couturier had a brutal day on faceoffs (6-for-21, 29 percent) but he and linemates Mike Knuble and Matt Read were good the forecheck. At the 1:33 mark of the middle stanza, it paid off.
Eric Staal attempted to clear a puck off the defensive boards. Instead, he sent it right into the oncoming Knuble. The puck went directly to Read, who had a clear path from the half boards to the right slot. Read fired a shot over Ward's glove to give the Flyers their first lead of the game at 2-1.
Read has now scored goals in back-to-back games. Through the first dozen games of the season, he leads the club in both goals (five) and points (nine).
The Flyers did a good job of playing with the lead until midway through the period, Then got hit with the next round of adversity. Things started out well enough, with the fourth line of Max Talbot, Ruslan Fedotenko and Zac Rinaldo applying the pressure on the forecheck deep in Carolina territory.
After claiming a hard-won puck from a scrum behind the net, Fedotenko hurried a centering pass into the slot, where it was intercepted. Play swung the other way, and the line hustled back and recovered in good shape. In fact, the Flyers generated an odd-man rush heading back toward the Carolina end of the ice.
While that happened, Rinaldo tangled with Jay Harrison behind the play. The odd-man rush got blown dead as the referees called matching minors on Harrison for roughing and Rinaldo for diving to embellish the play.
From the pressbox in real-time, I was focused on the Flyers' line and didn't see if Rinaldo had actually embellished or it was another case of referees making calls based on his reputation rather than what actually happened on the ice. Upon seeing the reply, I was inclined to think if it had been a different Flyers' player in the same spot, the team would have gotten a power play out of it (with the odd-man rush continuing on a delayed penalty) rather than a four-on-four with play immediately blown dead.
The four-on-four didn't go well. Jeff Skinner swung behind the net and circled out in front. Bryzgalov left a lot of room under his armpit to the short side and Skinner fired off a wrist shot that got through the space before Bryzgalov could get it closed up. The game was tied, 2-2, at the 11:17 mark.
After the game, I saw some internet commentators gushing about what a tremendous shot Skinner had made. But NHL Network commentator (and former NHL goalie) Jamie McLennan pegged it correctly: This play should have been a routine save, and Bryzgalov simply misplayed it.
It wasn't like Skinner had fired a perfect shot under the crossbar. It was a shot that should have been right into the goalie because there was nothing open at which to shoot, except to hope for a mistake or a rebound to drop in the crease. Bryzgalov started out with a gap under his arm the size of a mini-basketball, and the hole was still big enough for a puck to get through before he got fully set. Credit Skinner for finding the opening and getting movement on his shot, but it was still a soft goal.
Bryzgalov has been the Flyers' best player on a game-in and game-out basis this season. But this one was a bad goal at a bad time. It happens to all goalies. Now it would be up to the offense to pick up for their goaltender's miscue in the same way that Bryzgalov has erased a lot of other people's mistakes all season.
The Brayden Schenn line responded just 15 second later.
The sequence started with Bryzgalov helping his own cause. The Flyers' goaltender knocked a puck out to Brayden Schenn and ended up with his second assist of the season. From there, Schenn rushed the puck up the ice and found Voracek as the winger made a beeline for the net. Voracek chipped the puck over Ward to restore the one-goal lead, at 3-2.
Over the course of yesterday's game, the Flyers had to kill off three penalties. Two of them, whistled by Philadelphia native Ian Walsh, almost seemed like the official was looking for something to call (I agree with those who have said that Walsh sometimes seems overly sensitive to making sure no one can accuse him of favoring the team he grew up rooting for. If anything, as an NHL ref, he scrutinizes the Flyers even a little harder).
Philly got through a pair of penalty kills in the middle stanza, emerging in good shape from both. They took their 3-2 lead and a 22-17 shot advantage into the third period.
THIRD PERIOD
Having blown a one-goal lead in the third period against Florida, it would have been nice to see the Flyers overwhelm the Hurricanes while protecting a one-goal third period lead yesterday. But that didn't happen.
Instead, the Flyers were back on their heels for the first 11 minutes of the third period. Philly's forwards largely stopped skating, and consequently, the forechecking and puck possession time fell off considerably. Too much time was spent in the Flyers' end of the ice, and the club was now leaning heavily on Bryzgalov (who finished out strong after the Skinner goal) to nurse the lead.
During yesterday's game, the Flyers got strong defensive performances from Timonen, Luke Schenn and Nicklas Grossmann. Schenn, in fact, had a monster game. He obliterated Canes' with smart, clean hits that didn't take him out of position. In 24:50 of ice time, Schenn doled out eight hits and six blocked shots. He even rushed the puck up the ice several times and made several flawless breakout passes in a turnover-free game.
Grossmann wasn't far behind. He played mistake-free hockey for 18:26, blocking three shots, recording a clean takeaway, not committing any giveaways, dishing out a pair of punishing hits and blocking three shots.
At about the 5:30 mark of the third period, Grossmann had to leave the ice to get a skate repair. As a result, Braydon Coburn (who had some excellent shifts but also some really rough ones yesterday) substituted for Grossmann on his next shift partnered with Kurtis Foster.
On that sequence, Coburn had nothing directly to do with Carolina tying the game but ended up with a minus just the same. It was just a case of Carolina making its own good luck from the other side of the ice. Corvo fired a shot from the point that hit Foster in the shoulder and then re-directed past Bryzgalov to tie the game at 3-3 at the 7:58 mark.
Coburn stayed on the ice for the next shift, paired with usual partner Gervais. On this shift, Gervais gave his partner a tough pass to handle and it ended up going for a turnover. The giveaway got charged to Coburn but was really more his partner's fault because it gave Carolina time to pounce when Coburn retrieved the puck and tried to fire it up the wall.
For much of the remainder of regulation, Laviolette shortened his bench at five-on-five. Gervais got 48 seconds of by-necessity penalty killing time with Grossmann was in the box and one more even strength shift. Foster got one more five-on-five shift. Otherwise, the Flyers went with two defensive pairs (Timonen-Schenn and Grossmann-Coburn) until the expiration of regulation.
Penalty kills and power plays can be momentum generators or momentum killers for a club. In the third period of yesterday's game, I though the Flyers' mid third period penalty killing effort with Grossmann sent off on a phantom elbowing penalty called by Walsh was an important stabilizing point for the club.
After getting through the kill in good shape, the Flyers finally started to generate some attack time of their own. Bryzgalov also came up big when called upon to do so.
There is little doubt that Claude Giroux is pressing too hard to carry the team offensively this season. After ranking among the NHL's scoring leaders and placing fourth in the Hart Trophy balloting last year, the team's newly appointed captain has scuffled for offense after goals in the first two games of the 2013 season.
At the same time, people who say Giroux has been "invisible" are exaggerating. For one thing, he is helping out in other areas. I think he's played well defensively after that debacle of a game in Tampa where he failed to hustle on the backcheck on a backbreaking goal. Ever since then, he's done a good job at leading by example defensively.
For another, Giroux has been downright dominant on faceoffs. Yesterday, he went 16-for-24 (67 percent) on faceoffs. He has now won 50 percent or better of his faceoffs in nine of the Flyers’ 12 games this season, including the last five in a row. Over that span, he winning draws at a stellar 63.5 percent (87 for 137) clip.
Last but not least, he's still getting scoring chances. No, yesterday's game was not his line's best at five-on-five. Honestly, I think it had more to do yesterday with trying to work Simmonds back into the lineup and Briere being a little out-of-synch himself than it did with anything Giroux himself was doing wrong.
When it is successful, the Giroux line depends on its left winger -- normally Scott Hartnell, but Tye McGinn did a fine job in substitution for the injured All-Star -- to be the first one in to create pressure on the forecheck. He has to win battles down low and create room for his linemates.
Simmonds had a rough first game back in the lineup, and just was not in synch at all with Giroux and Briere until the latter portion of the third period. Simmonds just seemed wound a little too tight. He was hyper-kinetic but he had a lot of wasted energy and too many plays where, when he did win the puck, he was too anxious to get it to Giroux or Briere.
Other times, a linemate would put the puck around the wall to find that Simmonds had already vacated the spot where he'd been stationed just a split second earlier. His intentions were good -- peel out behind the defense and look to get to the net -- but he and his linemates didn't read what the other one was doing.
In the games with McGinn on the top line, Giroux and Briere generated their share of five-on-five chances (especially in the Tampa game). It just wasn't happening yesterday, except for a few isolated shifts. I'm sure Simmonds will settle back in and the line will readjust. Having three righthanded shooters on the same line is a little unusual, but if three lefties can work just fine as a combo, so can three righthanders.
But as for Giroux as an individual player yesterday, he came within a whisker of a first period power play goal. In the closing seconds of the third period, Giroux made a brilliant set up to a wide-open Read, who had a pair of glorious chances (initial shot and follow-up) to win the game in the final three seconds.
Giroux had yet another near-miss on his first shift of the four-on-four overtime, splitting the Carolina defense to create a scoring opportunity. If any one of these chances had ended up in the net, people would be saying how the captain stepped up and delivered. But since he ended up pointless on the day and his line didn't have a great offensive game at five-on-five, he was "invisible."
OVERTIME
Danny Briere lives for game-on-the-line situations. He has gained a well-earned reputation for being one of the NHL's premier clutch scorers, and is also the NHL's number one playoff goal scorer since the 2004-05 lockout. Those who want to see his contract bought out at the end of the season could very well be among the first to bemoan what the team would be losing when it comes to scoring in high-pressure situations.
Yesterday, at the 1:47 mark of the extra frame, Briere did it again.
Briere carried the puck into the slot and fired off a wrist shot. This time, the Flyers got a favorable bounce off the inside of the goalpost, at it struck the puck, hit off Ward's backside and went directly into the net. The goal made the Flyers 4-3 winners and secured the seven-point homestand.
Brayden Schenn earned the secondary assist on the Briere goal, to complete a three-point afternoon. Nicklas Grossmann (who had stepped off the ice on a line change by the time it crossed the goal line, and didn't earn a plus on the play) got the primary assist.
How frequently in his career has the Flyers' little Mr. Clutch stepped up in these sorts of situations? Try this on for size.
Briere's tally was the 39th regular season game-winning goal of his career. That does not include his frequent postseason scoring heroics. During his Flyers' career, Briere has notched a combined 23 game-winners (14 in the regular season and nine in the playoffs) to his credit. Counting ONLY regular season games, he has scored 11 overtime goals in his career, including four in a Flyers uniform.
Not too shabby.
**********
DIABOLICAL ROAD TRIP
The game at the Wells Fargo Center yesterday marked both the end of the Flyers' four-game homestand and the start of arguably the most brutal stretch of the 2013 regular season. The team is not just embarking on a six-game road trip, it is also a very rough trip in terms of the condensed schedule and the likely difficulty of some the games even if they'd been played under more favorable travel/ time off conditions.
Yesterday's game marked the start of a three-game-in-four-night stretch, the third game of which is always a tough haul to avoid dead legs by the final period. The Flyers have a game in Toronto tomorrow night and then have to take a 1,000 mile trip to Winnipeg for a match on Tuesday.
The Flyers are going to be virtually forced to start backup Michael Leighton in one of the games. I presume it will be the Winnipeg game, both because there is one day off before the Toronto game and also because Bryzgalov had success against Toronto last year but struggled mightily against the Jets.
That's not set in stone, of course. Perhaps Laviolette will give Leighton the call for the game where the team figures to have more energy and then hope Bryzgalov can give them a shot to snatch one or two points by keeping the score manageable against Winnipeg.
Personally, I'd go with Bryzgalov against Toronto and aim for the optimal chance to win. No doubt Toronto will be fired up for the game, especially coming off last night's blowout win over Montreal and the first game against the Flyers since the trade of Luke Schenn for James van Riemsdyk.
For the Winnipeg game, well, I'd hope the offense outscores whatever damage gets done in the Philly end. Perhaps the special teams could carry the night,. Who knows?
I will say this: If a Flyers' goalie is going to take a beating on Tuesday-- and that was the case last year in a series of ultra-high scoring games on both sides -- I would much rather it be Leighton than Bryzgalov. If a shaky backup goalie gets thrown to the wolves in a tough road building under unfavorable conditions, it's better than having a starter who has been locked in all year face a situation that could derail him.
Leighton got lit up by Tampa Bay in his lone outing of the 2013 season. He has played all of one competitive hockey game since last April, and has played in all of one NHL regular season game and one abortive 2011 Stanley Cup Playoff outing since December 2010. So the thought of Leighton in goal in EITHER of the next games is not an appealing one.
It would be nice if the Flyers' record right now was a little better than 5-6-1, but it's too late to worry about that. The circumstances dictate that the backup goalie get one of the next two games, so Leighton is just going to have to battle in whichever game he gets and hopefully the team rallies around him to win.
If the Flyers can take three of four points from the Toronto and Winnipeg games -- or a bare minimum of two -- they will have done OK for themselves in the early part of the road trip. Unfortunately, things won't get much easier from there.
After playing in Winnipeg on Tuesday, the Flyers return east. They will likely not practice on Wednesday but should get a full practice in on Thursday in Voorhees. On Friday, the Flyers go to Newark to play the New Jersey Devils team that knocked them out of the playoffs in five games last spring and then shut them out, 3-0, in the third game of this season.
Immediately after the Devils' game, the Flyers head back to Canada to play a Saturday night game in Montreal. The Canadiens will have had the previous night off, so the Flyers must be particularly wary of energy management and discipline while also finding ways to solve Carey Price.
The Flyers have Sunday off but then turn around to complete another (three-game-in-four-day) stretch with a rare Monday 1 p.m. game against the Islanders. Although the Flyers have dominated the Islanders in the win-loss column in recent years, the Islanders are an improved club that managed a regulation win and a skills competition win (after a 0-0 tie in regulation and overtime) against the Flyers in six tries last year.
New York easily could have won four games from the Flyers last year, but horrific goaltending from Rick DiPietro cost them the first game after building an early lead, and a fluke goal by Wayne Simmonds allowed by Evgeni Nabokov turned the second meeting in the Flyers' favor.
Being the third game of a three-in-four stretch, the fifth game of the road trip, plus having a weird start time for a weekday game, the game against the Islanders has potential to be one of those strange games that could go for you or against you.
Oh, and by the way, the Flyers have to conclude their six game road trip with a game in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. The Penguins will be a well-rested team by that point, having had two nights off between a road game in Buffalo (the second game of a two-game-in-three-night mini-road trip) and the home meeting with the Flyers.
While the Flyers will have had six games in six cities in nine days before finally finishing the road trip in Pittsburgh, the Penguins will have played four games including today's home-and-home rematch with the Devils. After today, the Penguins are off til Wednesday, when they have a home game against Ottawa. Then they play the Jets in Winnipeg on Friday and the Sabres in Buffalo next Sunday.
In other words, Philly is going to have two road back-to-backs and a pair of three-in-fours before arriving in Pittsburgh, while the Penguins will not have had ANY back-to-backs at all in that span. The Penguins are hard enough to deal with under ideal schedule conditions. They are going to be even tougher to manage at the tail end of a brutal road trip while the Pens themselves will be comparatively fresh.
Yes, I know the schedule is something beyond the Flyers' control, and it's not a built-in excuse for losing. Yes, I'm equally aware that after this brutally tough stretch of games, the Flyers will start to get a more favorable, and home-heavy schedule while catching quite a few potentially tired opponents.
But that knowledge doesn't make the next 10 days to come any easier on the Flyers. If they can get eight of 12 points from the six-game stretch (let's say 3-1-2 or 4-2-0), it will have been an overall success. The team still wouldn't be sitting pretty in the standings, but would be in good shape to start climbing thereafter.
For now, I'm just glad the Flyers had that seven-point homestand as a lead-in to the trip.
*****
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