The Flyers' prolific collapse in last night's 5-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins did not teach us anything new about the rivalry between the clubs nor did it (unfortunately) reveal something we didn't already know about the 2013 Flyers.
We already knew that no lead is safe in games between the two clubs. In fact, it often seems to be the club that trails (frequently by multiple goals) early that goes on win.
We already knew that the flaws in team defense and goaltending of both clubs but especially the Flyers are prone to getting exposed in big games.
We already knew that the 2013 Flyers often fail to step up in third-period crunch time of winnable games. In fact, it's already happened twice this week and the team has earned zero points out of games that entered the third period tied.
We already knew that the oft-mentioned 60-minute effort is often elusive for the Flyers. They'll have one, perhaps one-and-a-half strong periods but they also are also prone to letdowns that span entire periods. The Flyers didn't deserve to win last night, because they were only the better team for 20 minutes of a 60-minute game.
We already knew that other teams' in-game adjustments have often been better than Philly's pretty much all year. Last night, Dan Bylsma adjusted to what made the first period so dominant for Philly. His team stopped being reckless and undisciplined, and Philly had no counterpunches to offer when they actually had to fight for space and go 200 feet. There's a reason why the Flyers are a sub. 500 team that appears unlikely to reel off any significant winning streaks this season. The reason is that they are predictable and exploitable by teams that are patient. Eventually, the Flyers will crack. They usually do.
We already knew that the Flyers first power play unit is potent and their second power play unit has generally been abysmal. That didn't change last night.
We already knew which five-on-five defensive matchups were unfavorable to the Flyers and that unless Danny Briere (or Brayden Schenn) stepped up offensively to offset that, Briere and his linemates stood a good chance of finishing the night with ugly plus-minus numbers.
We already knew that Sean Couturier is playing with very low offensive confidence, and his struggles appear nowhere close to ending because he's stopped going anywhere near the net.
We already knew that unless the Claude Giroux line stepped up to re-turn the momentum in the Flyers' favor -- and as soon as the Penguins' made it 4-2 early in the second period, there was already a sense of Philly deflating -- no one else was likely to do it. Where was Briere? Where was Simon Gagne?
We already knew that Ilya Bryzgalov has been largely unable for the last month to make momentum saves against good teams. His season save percentage has now slipped below 90 percent, and that's flat out nowhere near good enough (especially after his strong start in January). Last night, he was shielded in the first period, but was there EVER any confidence that he'd come up with anything but the most routine of saves against that power-packed Pittsburgh lineup? By the same token, did anyone think the change over to Brian Boucher was going to alter the momentum?
On Saturday, the Flyers face another team that's not going to make things easy on them: the Boston Bruins. This week started with the Flyers having a chance to make a statement against the top teams in the East. Well, they've been making a statement.
That statement is, "We're not good enough to win with any consistency, especially not against the real contending teams."
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