November 11, 2015
The first game after a long road trip is generally believed to be a tricky one. Even so, I’m not sure that bit of narrative can fully explain how terrible the Philadelphia Flyers’ performance was on Tuesday night against the lowly Colorado Avalanche.
The Avs entered tonight’s festivities alone in the Western Conference basement with nine points. They are also the worst puck possession team in the NHL by a mile (42.7% Corsi For). And despite their major shortcomings, Colorado managed to outshoot the Flyers 40-25 en route to a 4-0 win. That is not easy to do, folks.
The game film tonight: 🚮
— Jeff Neiburg (@Jeff_Neiburg) November 11, 2015
The last Flyers game I covered at Wells Fargo Center was an overtime win couple of Saturdays ago against the New York Rangers. If that was the high point of the young season, tonight’s listless effort is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Here is some of the horror that we saw on Military Appreciation Night:
• The joke was made on Twitter by multiple people that it’s almost as if Michal Neuvirth read all of the goalie controversy articles and wanted to nip any of that conversation in the bud. It took less than a minute for Jarome Iginla (the NHL equivalent of “He’s still in the league?”) to score what British soccer fans would term “a howler.”
Iginla using magic to score goals pic.twitter.com/OTq30mNm2B
— Stephanie (@myregularface) November 11, 2015
• Neuvirth (36 saves) has been excellent this year and he was far from the only reason the Flyers lost, but he wasn’t sharp tonight. He also gave up a big ol’ unnecessary rebound that led directly to Matt Duchene’s second goal of the second period.
• How about Vinny going truck stick on a guy? Brad Stuart is certainly in exclusive company.
Vinny Lecavalier hit a guy. No seriously. pic.twitter.com/K7Rnleyx4z
— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 11, 2015
• Late in the game, Sam Gagner took a shift with the first line in Michael Raffl’s place. Still no goals for Jake, though: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Claude Giroux looked to be in some pain after getting lifted off the ice with a check. He didn’t miss any action, though.
Back at it here on Thursday night, the Flyers will take on Alexander Ovechkin (game enough to let the Men In Blazers make fun of his teeth) and the Washington Capitals (10-3-0). So yeah, a little bit of a step up from tonight’s opponent. At only 30 years old, Ovi is one goal away from breaking Sergei Fedorov’s record for most by a Russian in the NHL (483).
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
