The Philadelphia Flyers missed an opportunity last night to climb above .500 for the first time this season and move up as high as third in the Metropolitan Division standings. The Flyers slogged through a 2-0 shutout loss to the Minnesota Wild in the second game of the Philly's six-game road trip.
There is not really much to say about the game itself, except that the better team won and Flyers goaltender Ray Emery deserved a better fate. The story of the game in a nutshell:
In the first period, the Wild dominated the Flyers. Philly was sloppy defensively and generated almost no forechecking pressure on the occasions they were able to get the puck over center ice. Emery was the main reason the game remained scoreless at the first intermission in a period where Philly got outshot, 9-4.
The scoreless second period was very conservatively played on both sides. The Flyers tightened things up defensively but the offensive pressure was still non-existent. Both teams mustered six generally harmless shots apiece; bringing the Flyers' shot total to a pathetic 10 through 40 minutes. The highlight of the period was a fight between Jay Rosehill and Michael Rupp early in the frame. Rosehill won it.
In the third period, the Flyers finally started to generate speed and forechecking urgency, but could not solve Josh Harding (who finished with 21 saves). Next thing the Flyers knew, they had a couple of coverage breakdowns in their own zone, and Jason Pominville and Charlie Coyle cashed in for goals spaced less than a minute apart.
Philly spent the rest of the night chasing the game in futility. Harding made several excellent saves, including one in which he robbed Jakub Voracek from point blank range on a Philadelphia power play. Craig Berube pulled Emery with over three minutes remaining in the third period.
The Flyers threw a lot of late pressure on Harding, to no avail. Any chance at a late goal to cut the deficit to one was ruined by a couple of low-percentage passes right into Minnesota players. The pucks were sent out of the zone -- but not iced -- forcing the Flyers to regroup as the remaining time on the clock steadily ticked down to zero.
Last night's game was Emery's eighth start of the season. The team has given him all of 12 goals worth of "support" in those games -- and four of them came in a single game against the Buffalo Sabres.
Vincent Lecavalier missed last night's game with back spasms. He is on a day-to-day basis. In his absence, Brayden Schenn rotated from left wing to center and Michael Raffl moved up from the fourth line to the second.
The Flyers will try to get back to the .500 mark again on Wednesday night in Detroit. The Joe Louis Arena has been a house of horrors for Philly since the late 1980s.
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REASONS FOR FLYERS' SCORING WOES
During the Flyers' 6-0-1 stretch in November, the club averaged a healthy 3.86 goals per game and outscored opponents by a 27-10 margin in regulation in the process. That was partially due to facing some weak -- or at least defensively struggling -- opposition but also because the team was doing a lot of little things right to generate and finish scoring chances.
That stretch of play was like an oasis in an offensive desert. Over the first 15 games of the season, Philly produced a microscopic 1.47 goals per game (with a sole five-goal road game against the Islanders as the lonely exception). Over the team's most recent five games, the club has scored just seven regulation goals; an average of 1.40 per game.
At times, the Flyers' level of offensive ineptitude this season has been staggering. While some of it may be attributable to the club playing a much more defensively oriented style under Craig Berube than Peter Laviolette, when the puck support and collective moving feet have been there, the club has generated some chances. However, that has not happened on nearly a regular enough basis.
Philadelphia's offensive drought is not simply a matter of players "squeezing the stick" or being reluctant to take open shots. With the exception of the seven-game stretch in November, the team has not done enough of the things that lead to scoring opportunities.
Here are a half-dozen interrelated reasons why the Flyers are one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL this season:
1. Breakouts are often laborious.The Flyers are plagued by errant passing, especially from defensemen to forwards, and by forwards who become stationary rather than moving their feet. The team fails to clear its own zone too often under even moderate forechecking pressure and takes too many needless icings. Additionally, too many would-be rushes go offside or, worse, end up as turnovers between the bluelines and potential counterattacking chances for opponents.
2. Can't carry pucks in, can't dump in and retrieve. The Flyers often have trouble navigating the puck over the blueline. When they attempt to dump pucks behind the net, the opposing defense or goalie often gets to them first and the opposition breakouts are all too easy. It is the rare night when the Flyers string together multiple consecutive shifts of good forechecking pressure or even have more than a couple sustained cycling shifts to wear down the opposing team.
3. Too many perimeter shots, not enough rebounds. Even on nights where the Flyers generate a healthy number of total shots, the shot quality is often lacking. Opposing teams give up the perimeter and there are too many one-and-done rushes where there is no rebound opportunity or rebounds are easily steered to the corners and then cleared.
4. The offensive puck support is often poor as a team. The Flyers have reverted to losing the majority of the battles along the walls. This has been especially true in the offensive zone, where the Flyers' forechecking work has frequently been subpar. Again, when you can't carry the puck into the offensive zone and you can't get the disc in deep and then retrieve it by winning the battles in the trenches, there won't be enough puck possession time to generate scoring chances.
5. Shot attempts do not get through traffic. For all the talk about the number of Flyers shots from good shooting range that miss the net, an equal concern from my standpoint is the team's inability to get the puck to the net in the first place rather than having them blocked down by opposing teams.
6. No one consistently and effectively crashes the net. The Flyers play too much of a perimeter game much of the time. They talk the talk about scoring "greasy" goals off deflections, rebounds and loose puck scrambles in close but even when they manage to get the pucks to the vicinity of the net, the Flyers attackers too often get boxed out or their stick gets neutralized. Players like Wayne Simmonds do go to the net but often end up either in too close to get to pucks or otherwise fail to claim the puck and stash it home.
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