|
Flyers Wrapup: 10-16-08 vs. Avs |
|
|
|
|
|
Wrapup
Give credit where it's due to the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs came out with a lot of energy in the first period, and shut the Flyers down effectively in the final stanza. That said, this was a putrid effort by the Flyers on a night where they were facing an opponent that had gotten off to an even worse start to the season.
If you wrote a textbook on playing losing hockey, tonight's game by the Flyers would provide you a pretty extensive table of contents.
Chapter 1: Get outskated and outhustled early, overrelying on your goaltender. At least Martin Biron came to play from the outset. He made some tremendous saves early in the game.
Chapter 2: Give up the first goal of the game for the fourth straight game. Colorado's first goal of the game was one Biron would like to have back. Unfortunately, the Flyers don't have much margin for error right now.
Chapter 3: Go scoreless in the first period for the fourth straight game. The Flyers were forced to spend the rest of the night chasing the game. They came out with more urgency in the second period, but you can't afford to dig yourself a hole in this league.
Chapter 4: Give up a goal immediately after getting one. The Simon Gagne penalty shot goal that trimmed the deficit to one should have given the Flyers some momentum. But it's hard to generate momentum when you blow your penalty killing coverage on the very next shift.
Chapter 5: Get offensive contributions only from one line. It's great that Gagne and Mike Richards are off to fast offensive starts. But where are the contributions from others in a lineup that's supposed to have all this offensive depth? Did guys like Scottie Upshall even play tonight? I saw Scott Hartnell trying to make things happen. Where were some of the other support players to match it on more than a shift or two? As for the key players, where was Jeff Carter tonight?
Chapter 6: Get spotty blueline play. Kimmo Timonen was his usual steady self. Everyone else -- including Braydon Coburn (who kept taking penalties) -- looked suspect. As bad as Joffrey Lupul looked in getting his pocket picked on the backbreaking fourth Colorado goal by McCormick, the resulting three-on-two counter attack could hardly have been defended worse than how Steve Eminger and Andrew Alberts played it. Also, Luca Sbisa looked tonight like the 18-year-old defenseman he is.
Chapter 7: Take bad penalties. Were there some marginal calls? Yes, both ways. But the Flyers have taken some really sloppy, undisciplined penalties in all four games this year.
Chapter 8: Give up a goal in the last minute of a period. That was a problem last year, especially early in the season. Tonight the problem returned, negating the positive steps the Flyers took in the second period when they forechecked with a lot more gusto.
Chapter 9: Lack of backchecking and bad turnovers by forwards. The Lupul miscue was the most glaring mistake but the PK also lost track of Hejduk and failed to provide support on several other occasions.
Chapter 10: Play into the opponent's hands in the third period. Four stinking shots by the Flyers in the third period. Are you kidding me?
Chapter 11: Lose more faceoffs than you win. This is almost a nightly problem. Tonight, the Flyers won a measly 40% of their draws. Jeff Carter lost 11 of 16, getting eaten alive by Paul Stastny. (It would also help if the other skaters won some of the battles where the draw men tie each other up and the pucks need to be dug out).
Chapter 12: Get your shot attempts stuffed or miss the net. The Avs have some excellent shot blockers, such as Adam Foote and Ruslan Salei. But to get more shot attempts stuffed or miss the net (19 combined) than on goal (18) is simply not bearing down. This was hardly broom-closet, playoff-like hockey tonight.
Chapter 13: Go 1-for-7 on the powerplay against a penalty kill that was struggling something awful coming into the game.
Chapter 14: Fail to generate even a single even-strength goal.
Chapter 15: Yield goals to the other team's role players as well as their key guys. Colorado had five different goal scorers tonight. Nice work on their part, but the Flyers made it easy on them at times.
The Flyers now face the chore of going into San Jose on Saturday for what, on paper, is the toughest leg of the three-game road trip. They'll need a 60-minute effort, not a most-of-the-second-period effort to get points.
Note: The Flyers at least got some encouraging news. The damage to Randy Jones' hip was not as extensive as initially feared and his post-surgery timetable has been moved up to seven to nine weeks, rather than the initial 12-to-16 week estimate.
Update: 5:00 PM EDT
Per the Flyers' official site, the Flyers are making some line changes tonight after all. John Stevens is going to take a look at Joffrey Lupul as a center (at least that's how they practiced in Colorado today) and move Steve Downie from fourth line center to third line right wing. The forward lines are now as follows:
Gagne - Richards - Briere
Uphall - Carter - Knuble
Hartnell - Lupul - Downie
Cote - Metropolit - Asham
****
Preview
Two teams in desperate need of their first win of the season square off tonight when the Flyers (0-2-1) travel to the Mile High City to take on the Colorado Avalanche (0-3-0). The clubs last played on December 7 2007, as the Avs beat the Flyers 2-1 on home ice.
The Flyers are coming off a decent effort in Pittsburgh, but have yet to put it all together for three periods. Philly has yet to score the first goal in a game, have not yet scored in the first period at all, and has lost two games that it led or were tied after the second period.
The powerplay has yet to get untracked, but tonight is a golden opportunity to take advantage of Colorado's scuffling penalty kill. In 12 shorthanded situations, the Avs have already yieled five goals, including three in the club's 5-4 loss in Calgary.
Goaltending and defensive coverage has been an issue early going for the Avalanche. Peter Budaj has not played well, and Tony Granato will Andrew Raycroft the nod tonight. So far, the Colorado blueline has looked very slow -- Adam Foote in particular has looked like a player with a lot of mileage on him -- and costly turnovers have been a problem. The team has not been clearing the puck when it has a chance to.
Colorado still has the ability to generate waves of offensive attack, although the forward lines have been a bit inconsistent in the first three games.
The Flyers, meanwhile, have done a good job killing penalties but their own team defense needs to pick up considerably. The Flyers can't afford to lose track of players like Paul Stastny, Joe Sakic or Milan Hejduk, nor can they give John Michael-Liles free reign to pinch in the zone.
They also need a better performance out of Martin Biron tonight. Marty hasn't been as bad as his numbers suggest, but he's capable of playing a lot better than he has.
The Flyers will go with the same lineup they used in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, with the exception of Biron in net.
Notes:
* Seven of the Flyers' eight goals so far have come from Simon Gagne, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, while Daniel Briere has set up three of the eight tallies. The club needs to get a few more guys contributing. A goal from the defense tonight would come in handy.
* In the last game, Arron Asham saw time on Jeff Carter's line as the game progressed. With Joffrey Lupul coming off his best performance in the three games so far, we may also see him bumped up a line at some point.
* Ossi Väänänen has been skating better than he has in several years, and played an especially solid game in Pittsburgh the other night,.
* The NHL has finally corrected the plus-minus scoring on the Rangers' second of the opening night game to reflect the fact that Steve Eminger was on the ice for the goal.
Lines and scratches
Gagne - Richards - Briere
Upshall - Carter - Knuble
Hartnell - Metropolit- Lupul
Cote - Downie - Asham
Timonen - Väänänen
Coburn - Sbisa
Alberts - Eminger
Biron
[Niittymäki]
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»