October 19, 2024
Kyle Ross/Imagn Images
Flyers winger Owen Tippett fires a shot into the pads of Canucks goaltender Kevin Lankinen during the team's home opener Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center. Tippett has been struggling to hit the net through the Flyers' first few games so far this season.
The hype died down quick.
The Flyers were finally home at the Wells Fargo Center, and in front of a South Philly crowd ready to embrace Matvei Michkov, Jett Luchanko, and the next phase of a hopeful rebuild.
But after the lights and the noise of the home-opening ceremony quieted down, so did a team that only just got back from a starting road trip out West that went south for them fast.
And they couldn't turn the tides once back in their own time zone. The Flyers got blanked 3-0 in their second go at the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night.
Sam Ersson made 29 saves, but Michkov and Luchanko as the faces of the future were kept silent, while sloppy decision-making and execution with the puck plagued the lineup across the board.
Nils Höglander, Brock Boeser, and Kiefer Sherwood each cashed in on goals for the Canucks, while the Flyers couldn't come up with any answers.
They're 1-3-1 now, still way early into a young season, granted, but hardly with the start anyone had in mind for a year that was looking to present a step forward – definitely not after decisive losses to Seattle and now Vancouver.
"We just couldn't catch up and chase the game," center Scott Laughton said afterward. "Once the third hits, we were pretty disconnected as it went on, so clean up a couple things, get some sleep, and get back at it here."
The Flyers looked like a jetlagged, disheveled mess through the opening frame.
They had their looks, and the potential moments that could've gotten a crowd ready to cheer going early – Bobby Brink won a race for the puck rolling down into the Canucks' zone but sailed a wrap-around attempt wide – yet loose handling of the puck and rushed decision-making when they did have it stopped them short.
The Flyers staved off a high-sticking penalty charged to Garnet Hathaway, then got their first man-advantage look midway through when Elias Pettersson went off for tripping, but aside from a laser of a shot that Owen Tippett rang off the post (it feels like he's finding everything but the net right now), the Flyers' power play struggled to set up camp and in a lot of ways looked more reminiscent of the punchless unit they were last year compared to the almost revelatory one they've been through the first few games out West.
Late in the first, after Laughton got dragged down along the boards way away from the puck, Vancouver turned it down the other way and held a cycle along the left wall. The Flyers' defensive setup got drawn in, which let Höglander slip out from behind the net and in front to the right side, so when Pettersson got the puck up at the top of the circles, he had Höglander on the feed all alone, who had the empty net to slip the puck into with Ersson caught on the opposite post. 1-0, Canucks, and by that point, a 12-6 shot advantage for Vancouver that clearly painted which way the ice was tilting.
Vancouver goal!
— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) October 19, 2024
Scored by Nils Hoglander with 03:51 remaining in the 1st period.
Assisted by Elias Pettersson and Conor Garland.
Philadelphia: 0
Vancouver: 1#VANvsPHI #LetsGoFlyers #Canucks pic.twitter.com/Xiq76L6rQe
Faint boos from the home crowd followed the Flyers off the ice into the first intermission.
"It's the NHL, you come ready every day," Laughton said postgame on if the opening road trip wore on the team heading into Saturday night. "Everyone goes through it. The West goes through it all the time. We got enough time to prepare and get ready for this one, especially for the home opener, you got a lot of juice. But it didn't translate."
Fortunes didn't change much for the Flyers in the second.
Erik Johnson crashed down to the front of the net but whiffed on a tic-tac-toe sequence set up by Michkov and Morgan Frost that would've tied the game at one had the veteran defenseman been able to convert.
"It was an absolutely perfect pass," Johnson said of the feed that Michkov sent him on that play postgame. "I just watched the replay a few times, and I don't know if clips the goalie's pad or not, but right before it's gonna hit my blade, it hops...S****y luck."
Later on, Laughton got sprung toward the net at the offensive blue line on a passing sequence from Jamie Drysdale and then Travis Konecny that sailed the puck through the neutral zone to set up a chance, but after Laughton shook off Canucks captain Quinn Hughes with a deke, his shot just missed the mark and wired off the post.
Moments later, the Canucks had it back at the other end. Jake DeBrusk carried the puck in for Vancouver, Rasmus Ristolainen lost it in his feet trying to swat it away and got caught in no man's land when Boeser recovered it and chipped it back to DeBrusk down low.
Egor Zamula chased after him behind the net, then every Flyer went after the puck when it found a crashing Tyler Myers in front of the crease. Myers slipped a backhander out, and Boeser grabbed it, with no one else there and with another look at the open net. 2-0, Canucks.
"We lost our guy out of the corner," head coach John Tortorella said. "[Tippett] was the first man back, we lost him, and he ends up scoring."
Brock Boeser scores goals. 🫡
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 20, 2024
📺: Catch the Canucks vs. Flyers on SNP or stream it on Sportsnet+ pic.twitter.com/Xo7BSABnSK
🚨Canucks Goal🚨
— CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) October 20, 2024
Kiefer Sherwood scores his first goal as a Vancouver Canuck! 3-0 Vancouver! #Canucks
🎥: Sportsnet | NHL pic.twitter.com/dDpyETOpwt
Yeah, this one got away from the Flyers fast. Not that they had much of a grasp on it to begin with.
Play carried on through the third, but it was obvious the Flyers had hit a wall and weren't finding a way around it in time. Boos echoed through the arena as seats started to clear out.
"It's tough," captain Sean Couturier, who registered his 800th career NHL game with Saturday night, said afterward. "We want to put in a solid effort and make our fans proud, but tonight wasn't our best. Just gotta be better."
"Frankly, it was probably deserved," Johnson added later. "They were excited for a new season and lots of good young, new players, and if the players aren't delivering, you deserve to hear it."
The next turn to try and start course-correcting will be back here in South Philly on Tuesday night, against Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in the first of a back-to-back, home-and-home swing.
"It sucks right now, but we're still early in the year," Laughton said. "We still need to work on a ton of things and get better, and we will."
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