The Flyers have been outplayed in all three of their games against the New York Islanders this season. Last night, it finally caught up with the Flyers in a miserable 4-1 loss to a team they had beaten 23 of the last 24 meetings.
Sergei Bobrovsky single-handedly kept Philly in the game for two-plus periods until the Islanders put it out of reach on Mark Streit's power play goal on a 4-on-3 advantage. Bob was sensational in stopping numerous breakaways and 2-on-1 rushes throughout the game. He had no chance of stopping Matt Moulson's goal from prime sniping range or Josh Bailey's perfect backhander under the crossbar on a shorthanded breakaway.
As is so often the case, the shorthanded goal was the backbreaker for the losing side. Bob had just made a tremendous skate save on John Tavares on a 2-on-1 rush and, moments later, Philadelphia got a power play with a chance to tie the game. Instead of taking advantage, they turned over the puck again and allowed yet another breakaway as Jaromir Jagr had no prayer of catching up to Bailey.
The Flyers committed a myriad of sins last night. First and foremost, they didn't keep their feet moving against a speedy Islanders team. Add that to poor puck management and you get lots of odd-man rushes for the other team.
Until the third period, Philly was guilty once again of trying to make fancy plays when they would have been better served to keep things simple: Claude Giroux, Jaromir Jagr and Danny Briere were all among the prime culprits.
Evgeni Nabokov made about 3 or 4 very tough stops over the course of the game -- including robbing Jagr right at his doorstep -- but most of the 40 saves he made were strictly of the routine, unscreened side angle variety. Unlike last week's game on Long Island, Nabokov did not let anything soft get by him. He had no chance on Matt Read's deflection of a wicked Sean Couturier wrist shot that might have had enough movement to go in on its own. Nabokov then denied a 2-on-1 rush immediately after the Read goal, which kept the game under the Islanders' control.
Philadelphia's defensive zone coverages and breakouts were also lacking at key junctures of the game. Too many players cheated out of the defensive zone early and they were not alert to stretch passes by the Islanders, which allowed the likes of Tavares and Michael Grabner to hang out near the blueline for cherry-picking opportunities.
Scott Hartnell and Max Talbot both played strong games for the Flyers last night and Couturier, apart from his assist, played his usual steady game. I thought Andrej Meszaros was the team's best defenseman and Erik Gustafsson played his second solid game in a row. The rest was pretty much a mess.
The Flyers drew a little badly needed energy off Claude Giroux's late second-period fight with Dylan Reese. That's not something you want to see too often but it showed Giroux's competitiveness and willingness to try to find other ways to spark the team when his offensive game has been AWOL most of the month.
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