Islanders 2, Flyers 1: The scoring drought is over

The basics

First period: 12:38: Simon Holmstrom (Barzal, Mitchell)

Second period: 14:00: Julien Gauthier (Salo, Holmstrom), PPG

Third period: 17:38: Ryan Poehling (Cates, Laughton)

SOG: PHI 30 - NYI 19

Some takeaways

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This game felt, if nothing else, more like a regular preseason game. Monday\'s was pretty lifeless, pretty bogged down, and while this one was still not the absolute cleanest that we might have hoped for, that messiness was still within the reasonable realm of expectations for a preseason game. And this, it goes without saying, it excellent news. The Flyers have been going through a difficult training camp, and some fatigue in that first game was understandable, but it was going to be really important that they didn\'t let that spill over into the rest of their games, after having a day off yesterday. There\'s still a lot left for them to polish out, but that will come in time. For right now, they checked the box that they needed to check, in bringing better energy and more consistent energy into this game. And we\'ll see where they go from here.

Some things never change

One bit of continuity that we could find in this game was that the Flyers, well, they simply could not seem to keep themselves out of the penalty box. The Flyers were called for four minor penalties on the night, putting themselves an an extra disadvantage — any penalty kill is bad news, but particularly in the preseason, when the player combinations are all mixed up and they\'re without any real practice time for this situation. The results were, predictably, a bit of a mixed bag. The Flyers did manage to kill off three of their four penalties, and they seemed to settle in well enough as the game went on, but it was still a tough situation to be in, as they were struggling for goals as much as they have been through these early goings. It\'s preseason, so we\'ll be over it by the time we close out this section, but it\'s still worth a quick note.

Samuel Ersson is back

Ersson made his preseason debut tonight, playing in the second and third periods of action, and all in all, it was a very good return to game action for him. He did still give up one goal — which, coming after a failed clear immediately following a whiffed shot, seemed to surprise him — but his play on the whole was sound. He didn\'t seem to be showing any rust, and immediately settled in as a calm, stable force in net for the Flyers. And, for those keeping track at home, though it\'s still a small sample, we can pretty comfortably say this was the best individual showing from any of the three goaltenders that we\'ve seen in action so far. The backup battle is still well open, but Ersson is doing well to pull into the early lead.

A couple of nods

It\'s worth also taking a moment to recognize a few skaters who showed well in this game as well, before we move on. For starters, Scott Laughton was one of the best skaters out there tonight, and nothing about that should be surprising — he\'s always been one to step up and still perform well even when the team as a whole is not, and now that he\'s well established as one of the team\'s leaders, we should expect that to continue. But, of course, it\'s still nice to see it continue.

And then as far as the bubble players go — of which there were many playing in this game — Tanner Laczynski was a standout up front. He wasn\'t able to get himself on the board, but he did have one really good individual look in the second period, and set up another for Ronnie Attard later on, and even drawing a penalty on top of that.

Speaking of Attard, he had himself a solid game as well. The start was a little dodgy, as he looked a bit tentative, a bit not himself at times, but he settled in well after the first intermission. He was much more active through the final 40 minutes, particularly offensively, as he came out of this one with a team-high five shots on goal and two really good scoring chances. It was a nice bit of work, and a necessary bit, as he continues to make a push for a spot on the opening night roster.

No more opponent streams

Finally, we\'ll close things out with a bit of good news. For those of us who haven\'t been loving the wonky streams that the Flyers have been provided with by their opponents for the last few games (and truly, they have been... not excellent), we\'ll be glad to know that tonight\'s was the last one we have to endure. We will still be picking up the opponents\' broadcast on NHL Network on Friday (condolences to Boston broadcast haters, but you win some, you lose some), and then after that, the Flyers\' three remaining games will be at home, and we\'ll be back with our new but familiar enough broadcast crew. At long last.

Talking Points