Well, that sure was a game. The Flyers hit the road again after Tuesday’s win over the Red Wings riding a six-game points streak and were looking to keep those good vibes rolling into tonight’s matchup against the Rangers… but instead found them coming to a truly screeching halt. Let’s unpack it, let’s get it over with.
The Basics
First period: 1:25- Owen Tippett (Konecny, Frost), 9:00 Braden Schneider (Kaliyev, Smith), 10:24- Adam Edstrom (Lindgren, Fox)
Second period: 4:44- K’Andre Miller (Borgen, Panarin)
Third period: 5:15- Filip Chytil (Vaakanainen, Miller), 16:53- Adam Fox (unassisted)EN, 18:15- Reilly Smith (Lafreniere, Chytil)PPG
SOG: 37 (NYR) – 35 (PHI)
Some takeaways
Struggles to sustain
The first little bit of this game was certainly an emotional rollercoaster. It started out well for them, as they came out with good pace and were able to quickly play spoiler to Igor Shesterkin’s shutout streak, scoring to pull into the early lead not even a minute and a half into the game.
But if this start gave us some optimism that the Flyers might be able to build some momentum and do some damage in this game, it was extinguished just as quickly as it materialized. The Rangers didn’t make things easy on them, but the Flyers just didn’t play very well in this game either. They were disjointed, they couldn’t get, much less sustain, possession of the puck, their coverages in front of the net were often weak, and they weren’t nearly hard enough on pucks and their defensive play lagged as a result. It was just a messy effort, and the Rangers made them pay for it.
Minutes managed
As a result of some of this poor play, and the bad habits that may have begun to creep in, the Flyers shortened their bench for stretches of this game. Up front, Matvei Michkov was benched for a good part of the second period, while Egor Zamula (who had a particularly rough game, which was tough to watch in light of how well he’s otherwise been playing of late) and his defensive partner Rasmussen Ristolainen were sat for portions of the middle frame. Their minutes bounced back a bit as they were worked back into the rotation in the third period — though Nick Seeler is a notable exception, as he was held to just over 13 minutes in this one across all situations — but the pause they were given was notable.
Now, the Flyers don’t have the extra bodies around to consider a mixup in the lineup for tomorrow’s game against the Islanders, but it’s clear whose play John Tortorella wasn’t thrilled with over the course of this game, and who he’ll be looking to see step up when they get back at it again tomorrow.
Ersson did what he could
Despite what the numbers might suggest here, this was still a reasonably solid game for Sam Ersson. Five goals against doesn’t exactly sound like a banner showing, but in truth, it’s hard to pin any of those goals squarely on him. Ersson had to deal with defensive breakdowns in front of him, a whole lot of traffic allowed to settle in, a few good tap-ins for the Rangers, and an ill-timed penalty to wrap this whole thing up. Now, it wasn’t a perfect showing for Ersson either — he put himself in trouble a couple of times all on his own — but on the whole, he did a pretty good job of controlling what he could.
Garnet Hathaway summarized it pretty perfectly after the game, that he felt that Ersson played great and gave them a real chance in this one, and that’s hard to deny. His work gets a little bit overshadowed by the score and the fact the Shesterkin on the other side played absolutely lights out, but it was another good one for him, all the same.
Disaster averted
There’s one other small bit of good that we can pull from this game, and it’s that the Flyers, already a bit hampered by the injury bug, avoided a potentially very serious injury to add to the list. That is, at the very end of the second period, an awkward play unfolded wherein Anthony Richard (freshly back up from the Phantoms) got a bit tripped up, and as he was falling, the skate of K’Andre Miller came up on him. Richard was down on the ice for a few moments, holding his face, and there was a very real concern that the skate got up under the visor and cut him.
It turned out that he got the worst of it from the boot instead, and while it feels a little strange to say “thankfully he only got kicked in the face” but in this case, it really was the best case scenario, and Richard came away looking no worse for wear — he stayed on the bench to finish the period and then was right back out there for the start of the third. That, as they say, is a hockey player.