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Wrap: Flyers Blanked by Kings; Phantoms Lose in OT |
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Wrap: Flyers Blanked By Kings
Very little went right for the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday evening as they got shut out on home ice by the Los Angeles Kings, 5-0. The Kings scored two closely spaced goals in the first period, a pair of backbreaking tallies in the middle stanza and added another goal in the third period. The Flyers generated a measly four high-danger chances for the game and a combined 11 shots on goal in the final 40 minutes.
The Kings received tallies from five different players: Adrian Kempe (4th), Anze Kopitar (6th), Arthur Kaliyev (PPG, 3rd), Trevor Moore (4th, scored in the final 16 seconds of the middle frame), and Blake Lizotte (3rd). Quentin Byfield garnered assists on each of the game's first three goals. Kaliyev had a two-point game (1g. 1a).
Cam Talbot largely breezed to a 24-save shutout. One his better saves, which came on a Flyers' power play with the score 2-0 in in the second period, came off a close range tip-shot that could have narrowed the gap to one goal. He stopped a Cam Atkinson breakaway at the end of a Flyers' penalty kill. He caught a break on an Owen Tippett shot that hit the post. That's about it. Most of the rest was routine.
The Flyers went 0-for-4 on the power play. In three of the four power plays, generating offensive zone possession was actually a positive. On one of the man advantages, the Flyers spend nearly 100 seconds in the LA zone. Unfortunately, once they were set up in the LA zone, there was no discernable attack plan. The Flyers varied between paralyzing indecisiveness and hurried low-percentage attempts.
The personnel alignment was also strange. Morgan Frost, a smallish playmaker, was stationed as the netfront forward with Sean Couturier out due to injury. Scott Laughton was the entry guy on his unit.
From the second period onward, Flyers head coach John Tortorella repeatedly juggled line combinations trying to find anything that might click for the night. How did it work? Well, in terms of underlying metrics, Nic Deslauriers were the Flyers' most effective forward at five-on-five in Saturday's game. That's a credit to Delauriers' work ethic -- actually, he's been having a pretty good season on the whole so far -- but it's never a good sign when the No. 12 forward is on the top end of a metrics chart.
The Flyers were playing for the third time in four nights and in the second game of a B2B, while LA was the more rested club. However, this game really wasn't one where the fatigue factor had much effect. The Flyers' energy was low in the third period, but the outcome was already academic by that time. Rather, the Kings -- who are still undefeated on the road -- was simply the better and bigger team. The Flyers could beat one defender on occasion but the Kings were able to set up layers of defense and Philly rarely generated much quality. Talbot was able to track most shot attempts all the way, and the majority came from distance.
In net, former Kings goalie Cal Petersen was pressed into service by the Flyers because Samuel Ersson had played 50 minutes on Wednesday and the entire game on Friday. Petersen started out fine but the Kings started to pick him apart as the game moved along. The fourth goal was a demoralizing one in particular. The puck was shot through Travis Sanheim's skates from outside the right dot. It may have partially deflected off Sanheim's skate but that was a save that needed to be made. Petersen stopped 25 of 30 shots overall.
Saturday's game was an especially tough one for Flyers defenseman Cam York. He was caught watching a bouncing puck rather than canceling out his man on the Kempe goal that opened the scoring in the first period. In the second period, under no pressure, York took a careless delay of game penalty as he put the puck over the glass from the defensive zone. These are often the types of penalties that come back to bite the team that commits them. Sure enough, LA's Kaliyev scored on the ensuing power play to turn a 2-0 lead into a three-goal margin.
Tortorella benched York for the entire third period. Partner Sanheim, who logged north of 29 minutes of ice time, finished the night at a minus-four. York was minus three.
After the game, Tortorella gave a very terse assessment when asked about York's performance. Basically, he said that when he was talking about the Flyers mental lapses that proved costly, York was one whom that applied to when he made the team-wide comment.
Tortorella, who also barked at Tippett on the bench at one juncture, said there were segments of the game where he thought his team was playing well enough to keep things competitive. The failed power plays and lapses turned into a from a close game against a deep and well-coached opponent into a blowout. Of Petersen, Tortorella said he didn't want to go much into an individual assessment but said Petersen made a few good saves and had one or two go in that he'd have liked to have back.
The Flyers (5-6-1) will now embark on a road trip over the next week-and-a-half. On Tuesday, they will visit the San Jose Sharks (0-10-1). The Sharks, who came into Philadelphia in late October last year (in the game where Travis Konecny and Kevin Hayes were benched for the entire third period) and shut out the Flyers for their first win on 2022-23, have yielded 10 goals in back-to-back games.
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Phantoms Lose to Springfield in OT
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms loss a controversial 3-2 overtime road decision to the Springfield Thunderbirds on Saturday evening. The Phantoms took major exception to an overtime hooking penalty called on Rhett Gardner. Springfield's Dylan Coghlan (5th) scored on the ensuing 4-on-3 power play to end the game. It was Coghlan's second goal of the game.
For the Phantoms, rookie Samu Tuomaala stepped to the forefront for a second straight game. In the first period, the Finnish winger very nicely started a sequence that ended up with Phantoms captain Garrett Wilson (2nd) scoring the game's first goal. Elliot Desnoyers and Tuomaala earned the assists.
After Coghlan's first goal of the game knotted the score in the second period, Brendan Furry (1st) temporarily restored a Phantoms' lead at 2-1, assisted by Cooper Marody and Helge Grans. Former Flyers draftee Wyatt Kalynuk (1st) scored with 25 seconds left in the second period to re-tie the game at 2-2. The third period was scoreless. In the final half-minute of the third period, Phantoms goalie Parker Gahagen was penalized for playing a puck outside the trapezoid. Springfield went on the power play in overtime after the remaining eight seconds of a Matthew Peca minor (taken at 18:08) expired.
Subsequently, Springfield went back to the power play on the Gardner penalty. The former Dallas Star blew a gasket and was essentially tossed from the game on a 10-minute misconduct. JR Avon served the penalty for Gardner.
The Phantoms were missing Emil Andrae (injury), Ronnie Attard (illness), Wade Allison (injury), Victor Mete (paternity leave) and Adam Brooks (injury) from the lineup. Felix Sandström (injury) was recalled by the Flyers from a conditioning assignment and placed on IR by the parent team.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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