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Meltzer's Musings: Flyers Lost Series at Even Strength |
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The Philadelphia Flyers' 2013-14 season is over, following a 2-1 road loss to the New York Rangers in the seventh and deciding game of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series. The Rangers advance to play the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round, with the winner taking on the victor of the Boston Bruins versus Montreal Canadiens series.
Philadelphia wasted another brilliant goaltending performance by Steve Mason. The Flyers' netminder was the sole reason why the team even entered the third period with a glimmer of hope. Mason authored 31 saves, including many of the mind-boggling variety.
The first period was scoreless -- the lone 0-0 opening period of the entire series -- and rather evenly played. The second period saw New York dominate to such a lopsided degree that it nearly miraculous the Flyers trailed by "only" two goals. The third period was desperation time for the Flyers, who got one goal back early but never found an equalizer.
Mason had no chance whatsoever to stop second period goals by former Flyers forward Dan Carcillo (scoring his second goal of the series) and Benoit Pouliot (second goal of the series). Both goals came off coverage breakdowns as the eventual goal scorers were able to skate through the slot unimpeded. New York outshot Philly by an 18-5 margin in the middle period, which was almost entirely played in the Flyers' end of the ice.
At 4:32 of the third period, Jason Akeson pumped home a shot from the right side to bring the Flyers back to within 2-1. It was the rookie's second goal of the series. Braydon Coburn, who was partially culpable for coverage mistakes on both New York goals, drew the primary assist. Matt Read got the secondary helper.
The Flyers outshot New York by an 11-5 margin in the third period. The Rangers focused mainly on forcing the Flyers to go 200 feet but did have a stretch of about four or five minutes of the third period where they hemmed the Flyers in the defensive zone. Henrik Lundqvist finished the game with 26 saves. He looked a bit vulnerable for a couple minutes after the Akeson goal but then settled back in help to slam the door.
Above all else, the Rangers won the series at even strength. New York controlled the five-on-five play for the decided majority of the series, and were at their most dominant in the middle period last night.
During the regular season, the Flyers were a slightly below-average five-on-five team during the regular season, ranking 17th in the NHL in full strength goals/goals against ratio. In the playoffs, the Flyers ranked dead last in five-on-five play among the 16 participating teams in the first round (0.53 goals/goals against ratio).
The flip side of the coin was that the Flyers held the second biggest special teams advantage in the first round of all eight series played. Only Boston's 37.5 percent on the power play and 90.0 percent success ratio on the penalty kill against the Detroit Red Wings exceeded Philly's 28.6 percent on the power play and 89.7 percent on the penalty kill against the Rangers. Philly killed off its final 21 penalties in a row.
In the games where the Flyers' power play clicked -- Games 2, 4 and 6 each saw crucial power play goals scored by Philly -- they were able use it as a springboard to canceling out their five-on-five disadvantage. In the games where the power play was out of synch, it was a momentum killer.
Last night, the Flyers needed to use their two second period power plays (their only ones of the game, to one for New York) as momentum generators even if they didn't score. Instead, it was New York that gained even more momentum from those two-minute segments.
Above all else, the Flyers stopped skating and supporting the puck in the second period. The results were very, very ugly. Mason had to play out of his mind just to limit the damage to two goals, and any crooked number goals against period in today's NHL is very damaging as it is.
Perhaps the single most frustrating play of the night for Philadelphia came in the second period when Claude Giroux received a feed from Jakub Voracek and had a scoring chance from point blank range in the slot, with all sorts of room to stash the puck. The Flyers captain shot the puck over the net. That was a play that absolutely had to be finished off or at least put on net to force Lundqvist to make a 10-bell save.
Giroux finished the series with two goals and four assists for six points. His goals were a 6-on-5 goal late in Game Five and an empty netter in Game Six. Three of the points came in Game Six.
Overall, though, Giroux played a strong series in a lot of aspects. In the meantime, linemate Jakub Voracek was arguably the Flyers' most dangerous and creative forward throughout the series. He was the one Flyer who was able to attack both with speed and finesse on a frequent basis.
The Flyers have seven 20-goal scorers during the regular season. Neither Brayden Schenn nor Scott Hartnell scored a goal in the series and Read and Vincent Lecavalier scored just one apiece. Schenn had a pair of nice assists in the series but was otherwise ineffective with and without the puck. Lecavalier had a terrible series and was on the bench throughout nearly the entire third period of Game Seven as coach Craig Berube double-shifted the Giroux line.
Berube attempted early in Game Seven to roll all of his lines. Although the first period was fairly even and scoreless, the fact that fourth line forward Adam Hall had more ice time than Wayne Simmonds in the first period and that Zac Rinaldo -- who took the Flyers only penalty of the first period and the game -- had just six fewer seconds of opening period ice time than Simmonds coming off a hat trick game the previous night was rather questionable personnel management.
Hall, by the way, played quite well in the series and was a rock of consistency on the penalty kill. Even so, with the season on the line and a need to score first in the game, the rather sparing early use of Simmonds and waiting until the game was a 2-0 deficit to start double-shifting Giroux and Voracek stood out as an area where the Flyers' first-year head coach left himself open to second-guessing.
From a Flyers standpoint, it is extremely disappointing and frustrating to lose a series in which the club a) got outstanding goaltending in five of the seven games, b) held Rick Nash without a goal the entire series, c) rendered Lundqvist a non-factor in the series (not always for their own benefit, though) and d) were significantly better than their opponent in special teams.
The Rangers deserve full marks for their commitment to team defense and the way they used their speed to push the Flyers back at even strength. It was a pretty equal series when all factors were weighed but the slightly better team prevailed in the end.
In upcoming blogs, I will focus on team needs as they prepare for next season, write up a series of player evaluations, and discuss the farm system and draft. Tomorrow is likely to be locker clean out day in Voorhees, and I will be on hand to cover it.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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