Tonight saw the series shift back to Pittsburgh for Game 5, with the Flyers looking to bounce back from a difficult loss on home ice on Saturday. And while the Flyers were able to come up with a bit more pace, it wasn’t enough to drive them past what the Penguins were able to throw at them, as they fell short for a second straight game.
The basics
First period: 2:45- Elmer Soderblom (Mantha, Wotherspoon)
Second period: 3:17- Connor Dewar (Crosby, Lizotte), 3:29- Alex Bump (Ristolainen, Cates), 15:06- Travis Sanheim (Ristolainen, Konecny), 17:12- Kris Letang (Crosby, Shea)
Third period: No scoring
SOG: 20 (PHI) – 21 (PIT)
Some takeaways
Major pace to start
One of the more frustrating bits of Saturday’s game was the general lack of pace and urgency that the Flyers delivered throughout much of it. It was something that the team acknowledged as needing fixing afterwards, but it was an open question going into this game just how quickly they would be able to get themselves back to a more competitive level.
The good news here is that they were able to get there pretty immediately, coming out for the first period with some serious jump, and pouring on a couple of good looks in the opening few minutes, emphasizing playing an effective transition game and getting themselves to the net for chances.
The bad news is, though, that the pace would swing back around and burn them as well, as an attempt at one of those quick transitions up-ice turned into a turnover in the neutral zone, which the Penguins were able to turn around and march right in for their first goal of the game.
In all of that, there was a good lesson for the Flyers — bringing a high pace is important, but it can’t come at the expense of their composure, and they were going to need to find a way to settle things down as the game went on.
The finer points of the offense falter
What’s more, for all of the pace that the Flyers were able to bring through those early goings, and all of the almost-great chances that they Flyers were able to string together, they didn’t have a ton going for them in the way of fully developed strong scoring chances. They were getting themselves to the right areas, but between flashes of overpassing and prime chances shot wide of the net, they just weren’t getting as much out of their sustained offensive zone time as they might have liked. They certainly had more juice in this one, but they still weren’t playing all that cohesively.
And whether it was nerves from the size of this moment, or some carryover from the general lack of organization that bogged the Flyers down last time out, it’s hard not to feel that a lot of good chances were left on the board, and the Flyers had the chance to take control of this game earlier if they were able to bear down more definitively.
Vladar stands tall in difficult outing
Despite some lingering questions about the complete picture of his health, the Flyers again went with Dan Vladar for the start in this one. And this game was, on the whole, something of a challenging one for him. He didn’t see an especially high volume of shots in this one — the Penguins generated just 21 in total — but he saw a much higher volume of dangerous shots across the whole of this game.
And what they got from him in this one was a bit of a mixed bag. There were certainly a few saves that he made that were absolute highlight reel plays, and those were going to be spotlighted if they had somehow managed to come back and win this one. It was three goals allowed in this one, but the blame can’t really be wholly placed on Vladar for them — it was a couple of turnovers leading up to the first, a failed clear leading to the second, and then the third was just a fluky bounce off of the glass jumping out in front for the Penguins to capitalize on. He has a couple of dicey moments of his own, but he was competing well against the dangerous chances the Penguins were throwing at them.
All told, though, Vladar did just about all they could have hoped to see from him to keep them in this game, but it just wasn’t enough to steal the game for them, entirely.
Alex Bump makes his presence known
The Flyers made a big change to their lineup ahead of this game, opting to sit Matvei Michkov and bringing in Alex Bump in his place. There’s certainly a lot to unpack in that whole situation, but we’ll set aside the broader discourse to say: Bump looked really good in the NHL playoff debut.
We mentioned off the top that this was a game in which the whole team seemed to have more jump, but with fresh legs, Bump made an immediate impact in this big game. From his very first shift he was noticeable, as he was able to get a really good look in tight to kick off his game, and he was rolling nicely from there. Bump was playing an engaged game, not just creating a high volume of chances — and did he ever do that, recording a team-best 10 shot attempts and six scoring chances across all situations on top of that huge goal to get the Flyers on the board in the second period — but he was eager to engage along the boards, keeping his feet moving, and came up with a couple of nice plays off of disruptions from a good stick to get play moving in the other direction. We’ll see what he’s able to do next time out — because there’s little doubt that Bump did enough to punch his ticket for another game — but we’d be hard pressed to argue that he wasn’t their most noticeable forward tonight, and gave the team a much-needed boost when he was out there. It’s just a shame that it wasn’t enough to drag more of his teammates into the fight with him.
Missed opportunities mar a winnable game
There’s a lot that can be touched on here to acknowledge the ways that the Flyers improved and got things moving back in the right direction, but it’s hard not to feel bogged down by all of the opportunities that they had in front of them to pull even and away with this game that they just could not cash in on. It’s those literal missed chances that we talked about already, sailing prime scoring opportunities wide. It’s their continued inability to convert on the power play — tonight saw them with two opportunities on the man-advantage, and while they were able to get a bit of puck movement going, and nine shot attempts racked up, they only got one in the high danger area, as they continue to struggle massively on the power play, and that’s getting downright inexcusable. And on top of all of that, the Flyers had about three lucky bounces to keep the Penguins from scoring on the empty net, to keep them in this game until the very end, but still, they couldn’t do anything with that.
All of this is mounting into a particularly frustrating situation for the Flyers. It’s not as though they’re not getting the chances, but they need to find a way to dig deeper and get this done.
