Stop me if you've heard this one before: An eminently winnable hockey game ended with the Philadelphia Flyers coming out on the wrong end of the score and leaving the building with zero points. After last night's 4-2 loss in Tampa Bay, the Flyers fell to 1-6-0 in games that entered the third period with a tie score.
For the entire month of March -- nine games to date -- the Flyers have scored a whopping one goal in the third period. The one they did score was a meaningless goal long after the New Jersey had sewn up an easy victory.
Last night in Tampa Bay, the Flyers generated their share of potential scoring chances at even strength. However, they couldn't finish against a vulnerable-looking Anders Lindbäck, who seemed constantly off-balance and prone to overplays.
The Flyers showed resolve in battling back from a pair of one-goal deficits in the first and second periods but suffered their usual collection of breakdowns that proved fatal. In goal, Ilya Bryzgalov played OK in stopping 23 of 26 shots but was unable to come up with a non-routine but makeable save that opened the scoring.
Tampa's first goal, scored by Ondrej Palat, was a collective failure by the Flyers on the ice. Sean Couturier turned over a puck and then turned into a spectator as Dana Tyrell skated past him. Nicklas Grossmann, who had one of his worst games of the season in my opinion, gave up way too much room for Tyrell to feather a pass to Palat. Grossmann's partner on the shift, Bruno Gervais, failed to come over in time to cover Palat (although there were no other Tampa players in the vicinity). Palat then wristed a shot through a gaping five-hole opening between a slow-reacting Bryzgalov's legs.
Among the Flyers forwards, the team received effective play from Max Talbot, Zac Rinaldo and Claude Giroux (although Giroux's linemates Jakub Voracek and Scott Hartnell were AWOL). Beyond that, there were a lot of churning legs that accomplished very little, and the Flyers' power play was not clicking on this night. At least Philadelphia's penalty killing continued its six-week-long run of strong performance.
Talbot in particular had a great game, hustling up about five scoring chances. In the first period, Talbot made a nice stickhandling move and backhanded shot to tie the game at 1-1. It was Talbot's third goal in the last four games after scoring only once all season.
The Flyers suffered another breakdown late in the first period, which again ended up in the back of the net. Tampa completed a stretch pass, and Tyler Johnson beat Luke Schenn along the boards. Andrej Meszaros failed to contain Tom Pyatt, who received a pass and quickly re-directed it past Bryzgalov.
Philadelphia battled back in the latter stages of the second period to tie the game at 2-2 on an excellent individual effort by Giroux. The Flyers captain's initial pass attempt on the rush was intercepted but Martin St. Louis turned the puck right back over to Giroux, and he snapped a vicious wrist shot past Lindbäck.
The rest of the NHL has had little trouble scoring goals against Tampa Bay. But the Flyers ended up with just five goals in the three-game season series. Talbot and Giroux's goals would be the only ones the Flyers would get on this night -- they also hit the post on three occasions -- and that's usually not enough to win.
Good teams find a way to step up in crunch time. The Flyers' third-period problems this season are part and parcel of why this big-budget team is unlikely to make the playoffs. Even in the win against New Jersey last Friday, Philadelphia got massively outplayed in the third period of the tied game.
Last night, the Flyers mustered just six shots in the final stanza. Again, that's not going to get it done when you end up playing from behind for the majority of the period.
As the third period neared its midway point, the Lightning worked the puck along the right side boards out to Keith Aulie at the point. With Braydon Coburn caught up high in no man's land -- unable to block the shot and in no position to cover a man down low -- Teddy Purcell set up shop in the slot and re-directed the puck past Bryzgalov. The Flyers' goalie had no prayer of stopping this one.
For several shifts in the third period, Hartnell was replaced on the top line by the faster-skating Rinaldo. Eventually, Hartnell returned to the Giroux line. Meanwhile, Rinaldo threw numerous heavy hits in the game, including ones that forced Victor Hedman and Ryan Malone to leave the game. The Malone hit in the third period, which the NBCSN broadcast crew opined "might be looked at by the league" seemed to be an open ice shoulder-to-shoulder hit with an unfortunate result for Malone.
The Flyers strained in vain to generate chances in the latter part of the game, as Tampa occupied the puck along the walls and Philly was unable to complete consecutive passes coming out of their own zone. Philadelphia lost two valuable minutes of clock time having to kill a Grossmann boarding minor -- a questionable call on a seeming overreaction by referee Dan O'Halloran -- but actually had a couple of their better late offensive forays in the early stages of the kill.
Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos tacked on an empty net goal in the final seconds of the game to make it a 4-2 final. The tally was the 200th goal of Stamkos' still-young NHL career.
On his 38th birthday and playing in his 1,000th career NHL regular season game, Kimmo Timonen logged 24:06 of ice time. He had two shots on goal, made several good pinches and played his usual sound two-way game.
With each successive regulation loss, the Flyers dig the hole deeper and deeper for themselves. There are just 18 games left in the regular season, and the Flyers have an anemic 27 points in 30 games. With six days off until their next game -- a road tilt in Pittsburgh -- the Flyers are bound to lose even more ground in the Eastern Conference standings while other clubs catch up on their games in hand.
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COMING TOMORROW: A look at whether the Flyers are too impatient to develop homegrown defensemen and goaltenders.
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