January 19, 2016
Stop me if you heard this one before: The Philadelphia Flyers lost to a team below them in the standings.
After Tuesday night’s 3-2 loss to the lowly Toronto Maple Leafs, the Flyers are now 1-6-2 against the bottom seven teams in the NHL standings. And while most of the team doesn’t want to hear the “playing down to the opponents” narrative, they were almost all in agreement that the performance against Toronto wasn’t their best.
Here is some top-notch, Oscar-worthy footage of Dave Hakstol after he was asked whether the Flyers deserved their final fate:
The loss, against a struggling offense that had only scored six goals in its previous seven games, represents an obvious missed opportunity. On a night when the Flyers could have vaulted into playoff position if a few things around the NHL went their way (which didn’t happen), they just so happened play their worst game in a few weeks.
Yet, despite the poor performance, the Flyers were still in prime position to steal one and possibly two points in overtime. That’s because when they looked pretty much dead in the water trailing 2-1 in the third period, lightning struck.
👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻👻🐻
“He makes plays that put the team back on track,” Claude Giroux said of Shayne Gostisbehere. “That was a really big goal for us and it’s frustrating to have them score with a couple seconds left.”
And that final goal was an absolute backbreaker. Neither team scored the game’s final seven minutes until Matt Hunwick fired a one-timer from the right point past Steve Mason with just 7.5 seconds left in regulation. Just like that, the Flyers had at least a point snatched away from their grasp.
Hunwick game winner with less than 10 seconds left pic.twitter.com/ywQb9ZfPBH
— Stephanie (@myregularface) January 20, 2016
What has to be disappointing for the Flyers is that they largely let the Leafs dictate play after the game’s first ten minutes, specifically in a second period where they were out-Corsi’d 22-10 at 5-on-5. After two periods, they were lucky to only trail 2-1 because:
• A Toronto goal was ruled slightly offside after a nice challenge by Hakstol. Now that is how it’s done, Andy.
• Evgeny Medvedev made the best save of the game (yes, Evgeny Medvedev) to deny P.A. Parenteau shooting at an open net:
Medvedev saved a goal pic.twitter.com/QLMRb1LGRt
— Stephanie (@myregularface) January 20, 2016
“I think we scored the first goal and thought it was going to be a big night for everyone on the stat sheet and we sat back a little bit,” Gostisbehere said.
If losing the game was one missed opportunity, squandering the second life that Gostisbehere’s end-to-end brilliance presented them with represented another.
Coming off maybe their best win of the season Sunday night in Detroit, the Flyers came out, well, flying. They had an 11-1 shot advantage at one point, and Medvedev made a beautiful pass behind the Toronto defense to set up Matt Read for a power-play goal.
In particular, the fourth line had a pretty rough night. They were on the ice for the first two Toronto goals and R.J. Umberger, whose goalless drought was extended to 47 games, wasted a few golden scoring opportunities.
Up next for the Flyers is a trip across the state for an all-important game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who they are battling with for playoff position.
“The last seven games, we have been playing some good hockey,” Claude Giroux said. “We are going to have games like this. It is not time to hit the panic button. I think obviously we need to look at some video and see what we did wrong.”
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
