The Flyers closed out their season opening back-to-back on the road against the Devils, and while they were hoping to find a productive response to a gutting loss to the Penguins to open the season, the Flyers couldn’t push their game enough to claw their way to a win. Kept in it well enough to hang around for overtime by some pretty spectacular goaltending from Joseph Woll, things broke again in the wrong way for the Flyers on the way to another disappointing loss.
The Basics
First period: 11:12 – Rasmus Ristolainen (Sanheim, Konecny)
Second period: 17:58 – Dougie Hamilton (unassisted)
Third period: 5:33 – Travis Sanheim (Couturier), 9:44 – Luke Hughes (Evangelista)
Overtime: 3:23 – Jack Hughes (Bratt)
SOG: 25 (PHI) – 44 (NJD)
Some Takeaways
Another inauspicious start
After the outright walloping that the Flyers took in their opener on Wednesday, they were surely eager to turn the page and get things moving in the right direction, and do it quickly. If they wanted to accomplish all of that, it was going to be particularly important for them to be ready to go right from the jump in this one, to bring a tidy effort in the first period, but this was unfortunately not what the Flyers were able to deliver this time around.
Instead of a focused attack, the Flyers saw the puck turned over inside their own blue line on the opening shift, which turned into a chance for the Devils, and then found themselves hemmed into their own zone on back to back shifts, chasing the game while the Devils got their cycle going and began to pour on the chances. It made for a pretty significant challenge for the Flyers early on, as they had to fight even harder to get themselves into this game, seeking a control of play which would ultimately be quite difficult to come by for them.
Of course, the silver lining here is that the Flyers did still manage to survive the surge of Devils chances, and got a bit of luck for themselves to pull into the lead in the opening frame, thanks to a shot from Rasmus Ristolainen sailing through traffic and past Jake Allen. It’s an outcome that they would surely take, but it remains that the cracks in their process left them vulnerable to a reversal of that same luck.
Joseph Woll comes up big
Thursday night also saw new goaltender Joseph Woll make his regular season debut for the Flyers, and in the face of all of the challenges that were thrown at him in this debut, there could not have possibly been a bigger difference maker for the Flyers across the whole of this game. The lopsidedness of the chances in this one is going to be a major point of emphasis in the breakdown of this game, and truly the only reason that the score was not similarly lopsided is because Woll brought his A-game to this one.
With a whopping 44 shots on goal faced on the night — and 43 scoring chances generated in front of him — there wasn’t as much done to insulate him and make his job easier as he might have liked, but he was largely really stable in his net, picking up shots overwhelmingly well through traffic and delivering a couple of highlight reel saves along the way. In all, it’s hard to pin any of those three goals on him, with the breakdowns by the defense the primary issues, but it’s still surely a result that he won’t be overly pleased with. All the same, it was a meaningful effort that he was able to bring to a challenging situation, and just about as positive of a true first impression in a meaningful game as we might have hoped to see from him.
The penalty kill delivers
One of the more notable positives to come out of this one, though, was the play of the Flyers’ penalty kill. This was a busy night for them, with four minor penalties to kill, but they were able to come up perfect in their deployments, even as three of those penalties saw key killer pulled out of commission. It may not have been the most textbook of showings, but the penalty killers were able to do well to get themselves into lanes to break up the Devils’ cycle and ultimately chase them out of the zone, and if they weren’t able to do that, they came up with some big blocks to keep a few shots from getting to Woll, or else got out of the way to make sure that he could see any unblocked shots coming at him. It was a tidy enough bit of business, and that was enough for them in this one.
Now, while we’ll certainly take the positives of their play on the penalty kill and hope that they can continue to build on those positive returns, the greater hope is that the Flyers won’t put themselves in the position of needing to kill so many penalties going forward. We could certainly also quibble about that third penalty on Couturier — which was called as a board from a farther vantage point, but in reality was something closer to a whiffed-on check — but the reality is still that the Flyers were not putting themselves in the best of positions in this one, and the larger-than-optimal volume of penalties was a symptom of the Flyers’ rustiness, the amount of time spent chasing in this one. They largely got away with it here, but that’s not something that they can expect to continue much longer. They have to help themselves out here too.
Back to basics
We made particular note of the shot blocking work that the Flyers were able to deliver on the penalty kill already, but it’s worth acknowledging that they were able to bring a good bit of that across all situations. And while this might not have been the flashiest element of defense that they could have brought to this matchup, it does gesture towards a willingness to return to the fundamentals and then build up from there, leaning on their positioning to get at least a bit more of the job done.
But this, too, comes with a bit of an asterisk — which is a big time emerging theme of the breakdown of the Flyers’ game here — as that work on the fundamentals didn’t extend across the whole of the game, and the Flyers had a few ugly breakdowns along the way (the ugliest of which saw their defense caught puck watching on a backbreaker of a second tying goal in the third period). It may have been a step in the right direction, but moments like that are a clear reminder of the work that’s left to be done.
A note on chances
And to close this one out, a return to address the elephant in the room. After allowing 38 shots in Wednesday’s opener against the Penguins, the Flyers followed that up by allowing 44 shots in this next time out. It’s a dangerous game to be playing, to be sure, but this is particularly true when the offense is as anemic as it has been over these last couple of games. This game was no exception — beyond the meager 25 shots on goal registered for the Flyers across all situation, they saw themselves more than doubled up on scoring chances (13-30) and Expected Goals (1.07-2.5) at 5-on-5. It almost goes without saying, but we’ll say it all the same, that this is simply not a recipe to winning hockey games.
Now, perhaps some progress can be made towards generating more offense if the Flyers are able to establish a good mix with their lines and then just let them roll long enough to establish some meaningful chemistry, but when we recall this same type of issue plaguing the Flyers for much of last season, the eye still turns back to the broader underlying process. With four games on the schedule through these first six days to open up the season for the Flyers, they don’t have a ton of practice time at their disposal to tinker with their systems foundation, but something has to give for them before too long, and it will have to come from both players and coaching staff alike, if they want to avoid going on a proper skid to begin this critical new season.
All stats via Natural Stat Trick and NHL.com
