One thing that we have seen throughout the 2011-12 hockey season is that when the Flyers are primed to roll out a clunker, they don't go halfway. Last night, they were utterly swarmed in a 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
The game, which the Flyers miraculously led 1-0 until early in the third period, was not even as "close" as the final score indicated. Beyond the first 14 minutes of the opening period, the Flyers turned in a horrendous performance in all three zones of the ice.
Only a spectacular goaltending performance by Ilya Bryzgalov kept the team afloat. But, as Peter Laviolette correctly pointed out after the game, "There are times when a goaltender stands on his head like that and you’re able to squeak one out, but often times it doesn’t last or it doesn’t hold up. In the end, the results are just, and based on our play."
Last night, apart from the opening minutes of the first period, the Flyers didn't have their feet moving. The Devils did, pressuring and supporting the puck. Philly easily spent three quarters of the second period pinned deep in their defensive zone, and got worn down to nub for the third period. That's when the scoring floodgates finally opened for New Jersey.
The Devils pretty much threw their A game at the Flyers last night, even without the services of Ilya Kovalchuk. The Flyers responded with their D-minus game; which would have been an outright F apart from the goaltending they received while there was time to right the ship.
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Power plays can be a mixed blessing sometimes. Teams can lose -- or sometimes gain -- energy and momentum from their power plays in which they fail to score.
To me, the turning point of Game 2 came at the 14:18 mark of the first period through the opening two minutes of the middle stanza. That is when the Flyers had their first two power plays of the game.
The Flyers were far too stationary and their passing was not crisp against the NHL's best penalty kill. New Jersey built energy off those two kills in which Philly had the chance to extend their lead to 2-0. From there, it was total domination by New Jersey, pretty much unrelenting for the remainder of the game.
The Flyers defensive zone exits were atrocious, even when they weren't under intense forechecking pressure. Their offensive zone entry attemtps and puck management through the neutral zone were even worse. Philadelphia couldn't win a key faceoff to save its life. The forward-to-D gap was roughly the size of the Niagara River Gorge.
New Jersey could have pulled Martin Brodeur for an extra attacker for the first 17:30 of the middle period with absolutely no consequence. Not only did the Flyers not manage a shot on goal, they barely got off any shot attempts because virtually the entire period was played deep in Philadelphia territory.
I thought the Flyers were in a great position to drive a dagger in New Jersey's hearts late in the second period. They finally applied some pressure in the Devils zone, generating a pair of shots on a lengthy delayed penalty.
With Brodeur having stood around all period, the Flyers were primed to pounce for what no doubt would have been a backbreaking goal. The only problem: Once again the New Jersey penalty killers outworked the Philadelphia power play.
The end result was even more momentum gained for the Devils in the third period. A four-goal onslaught ensued.
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In Game 1, the upside of playing Danny Briere and James van Riemsdyk on the same line was evident. They created a lot of scoring chances, and accounted for three of the four Philadelphia goals.
Last night, we saw the downside of that combination. When the Flyers are on their own side of the blueline, they are at significant risk of getting scored upon in situations where they have to rely on Briere (often their weakest defensive center) and van Riemsdyk (often their weakest defensive winger) to assist on coverages of the slot or picking up a pinching defenseman.
Briere and van Riemsdyk both ended up minus-three last night. In fairness to them, the Claude Giroux and Brayden Schenn lines weren't much better defensively last night and the defensemen also contributed to the problems (such as when both Braydon Coburn and Nicklas Grossmann went to David Clarkson on the left side boards and Clarkson still ended up getting to the net and scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal).
Side note: I guess Adam Larsson will be staying in the New Jersey lineup for awhile.
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There were a few positives for Philadelphia early in the game last night that ended up getting lost in the wake of the disaster that ensued. Philly generated a lot of early pressure and played fairly well defensively over the opening half of the first period. The biggest plus was the play of several rookies.
Eric Wellwood was dynamic. He used his blazing speed to create a host of problems for New Jersey. If only he were a little better finisher, the Flyers easily could have built a 3-0 lead before the Devils had even known what hit them.
Brayden Schenn was also quite effective on the forecheck early in the game. He easily played his most physical game since the Arron Asham incident in Game 1 of the Pittsburgh series. He also made a nice little pass to Matt Read on the sequence that turned into Philly's lone goal of the game.
Read had a pair of cracks at the net on the same sequence. On the first one, he had a pretty good shooting angle but his shot hit the outside of the net. He then got the puck back in the lower right circle and snapped a shot under Brodeur's glove from a much tougher shooting angle.
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For the remainder of the playoffs, I will be doing some supplementary Flyers articles for the Camden Courier Post. Most of the work will be on road game nights.
Last night, I did my first story: a look at how Patrik Elias was one of the early influences on the Flyers' Jakub Voracek. In the morning skate before Game 2, Elias told NHL.com that he considers Voracek to be the Flyers' best forward after Claude Giroux. That was some mighty high praise.
Click
here for more.
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