Kraken 6, Flyers 4: Faltering in road trip finale

That\'s a wrap, folks. This run of Flyers After Dark closed out in Seattle, the road trip ending after four games, and while the Kraken team they met with looked vulnerable at times, but in the end, the stumblings from the Flyers proved to be too much to overcome. Despite a bit of a late game push for a comeback, it ended up being too little too late, and they wouldn\'t be able to steal a loser point this time around. And back home they go on a low note.

The Basics

First period: 4:21- Scott Laughton (Poehling, Hathaway), 18:15- Brandon Montour (Stephenson, Evans), 18:58- Scott Laughton (Hathaway, Poehling) Second period: 3:06- Jared McCann (Burakovsky, Dunn)PPG, 14:57- Eeli Tolvanen (Burakovsky, Wright), 17:44- Jordan Eberle (McCann, Gourde), 17:52- Shane Wright (Eberle, McCann) Third period: 10:19- Cam York (Laughton, Brink), 12:32- Jamie Drysdale (Michkov)PPG, 14:52- Oliver Bjorkstrand (Schwartz, Larsson) SOG: 25 (PHI) - 29 (SEA)

Some Takeaways

The Scott Laughton Show

If anyone was coming into this game wondering what this season was going to look like for Laughton, perhaps feeling a little concerned about the level of impact he would have as we made our way through the preseason and the first three games and saw him not coming through as a huge factor, he arrived for this game to make clear that, as the old adage more or less goes, reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Laughton got the Flyers on the board early in this one, inside the first five minutes of play, and when the Kraken tied things up late in the period and it looked like we might coast into the intermission with things even still, he responded quickly to pull his team back into the lead again. Overall, here, we saw him bring some good jump and doing well to create some looks, and indeed looked closer to his old form than we\'ve seen in a while. And it\'s just one good game, so we\'re going to avoid going crazy with any declarations that he\'s Back, but at the same time, it goes without saying that if this is Laughton turning the corner and the Flyers are able to get more out of him this season, that would be a big boost to the bottom of the lineup for the team, to be sure.

When will Owen Tippett be able to buy one?

It was, to be brief, a tough showing for Owen Tippett tonight. It wasn\'t a poor showing, to be sure -- indeed, he was one of the team\'s most efficient generator of chances at 5-on-5, as he put up eight individual shot attempts and three scoring chances -- but it remained something of an unlucky one. Because, for all of the good work he\'s doing to put himself in good positions and to create dangerous scoring chances, he simply cannot buy a goal right now.

We saw this a few times tonight, just devastating close chances not going for him -- early on, he had a wide open net to shoot at on the power play and his shot didn\'t go, and later he had a rebound come right to him, wide open, in front of the net and his shot went wide, and then in the third period he had a prime setup from Matvei Michkov right in front, a chance to tie the game, and here too he missed. Now, perhaps the good news is that yes, his process is sound and he\'s getting a good volume of chances, and yes, it looks like he\'s avoiding squeezing his stick too much and letting frustration manifest too visibly, all of which should make snapping this cold streak a bit easier. It feels like just a matter of time before things really start clicking for him again, but it is still pretty agonizing to watch, in the meantime.

Gone streaking

Don\'t look now, but the Flyers\' power play is on a bit of a heater to start the season. They came into this one with at least one goal in each of their first three games, and they were hoping to extend that tonight. It looked a bit touch and go for them for a little while -- the Flyers had a couple of opportunities early on wherein, while they were able to get some nice puck movement going and some chances put on net, they just weren\'t able to convert on them -- but in the end they were able to bear down well, avoid getting frustrated, and were ultimately able to break through on a goal from Jamie Drysdale (who also picked up his first point of the season in the process).

And it\'s almost impossible to overstate how major it feels to see the Flyers finally clicking again on the power play. Now, it\'s only been four games, and we know well how quickly a power play can go cold seemingly out of nowhere, but the initial returns for them have been positive, and it looks so far, dare we say, that they appear to finally be trending in the right direction again.

Fedotov time

With the Flyers wrapping up a somewhat arduous road trip and gearing up for their home opener on Saturday, the plan for this one was to give Sam Ersson the night off, an extra bit of rest, and toss Ivan Fedotov his second start of the season, and a chance to redeem himself after a five goals allowed outing in Calgary. It seemed a reasonable hope, but things didn\'t exactly pan out for them.

Fedotov made it through two periods of action, but again allowed five goals against, and was pulled before the third period. And while it\'s worth noting that Fedotov lacked some support in front of him at times, the defense broke down on him a few times, it remains that on the whole, he just did not look solid in his form. He\'s still playing too deep in his net, he\'s still not looking like he\'s reading play all that well. Routine saves are looking a little less than routine, and shots that he has to have are going in on him still. Now, we want to give him some grace, as he\'s still getting used to the speed of the league and the differences in shot angles, but all the same, it doesn\'t feel like an overstatement to say that the goaltending situation sunk the Flyers in this one.

Missed opportunities

It\'s a shame that the goaltending (and to a degree, the defense) couldn\'t deliver for them tonight, because the Kraken also seemed pretty vulnerable in this one, didn\'t seem their sharpest, and the Flyers did make them pay for that, but it still wasn\'t enough. All in all, it was an efficient showing from an offensive standpoint -- the Flyers managed to score three goals at 5-on-5 on 1.53 Expected Goals, and four across all situations on 2.32 Expected Goals -- and while there\'s a conversation to be had about regression and needing to make sure that\'s not the type of showing they\'re banking on repeating night in and night out, in this one at least, in a one-game sample, that kind of finishing effort should be enough to steal a game. Luck is a limited quantity in an 82 game season, and the hope is always that everything can align and the luckiest nights can be converted into wins. Often this is the case, but tonight it wasn\'t.

Talking Points