February 17, 2024
Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports
The Devils' Brendan Smith celebrates his second goal against the Flyers during Saturday night's Stadium Series game at MetLife Stadium.
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – The Flyers fell flat under the night sky and the bright lights of MetLife Stadium.
They dropped Saturday night's long-awaited Stadium Series game against the Devils, 6-3, as New Jersey jumped on Philadelphia's sloppiness at both ends of the ice to collect a valuable two points that suddenly put them not all that much further behind the orange and black in the playoff and Metro division race – the Flyers are at 65 points and still third in the Metro while the Devils move up to 60 and just two shy of a Wild Card spot.
The Flyers have been a revelation across the NHL to this point in the season, but they're far from in the clear yet when it comes to the playoff picture, and still bad when it comes to actually playing well in outdoor games.
Here are five thoughts from Saturday night's big stage...
After practice on Friday, head coach John Tortorella said he would leave the team alone leading up to Saturday night. They knew what was at stake – players acknowledged it repeatedly in the Jets Flyers locker room – and he trusted them to be ready to play.
After the first 20, they were down 2-0 with the ice tilting downhill for Jersey.
Travis Konecny, after delivering a jarring check to Luke Hughes right off the draw, got caught pinching down on the boards seconds later while covering for Cam York, which left Owen Tippett (also covering up top for the defense) in no man's land and Devils captain Nico Hischier off to the races on the breakaway. He beat Sam Ersson on the move and the backhand to make it 1-0 jersey right away.
🤩 NICO HISCHIER 🤩
— NHL (@NHL) February 18, 2024
The captain opens the scoring for the @NJDevils just 32 seconds into the game! #StadiumSeries
🇺🇸: @ESPNPlus ➡️ https://t.co/Pp9X7OGP3W
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/sEijvXhbA1 pic.twitter.com/ciw4TKbmW4
Then, in the latter half of the period, Tyler Toffoli won an offensive zone draw back to Jack Hughes, who kicked it out to Brendan Smith at the point for a shot that took a perfect bounce right back to Toffoli's stick. Morgan Frost, on the assignment, drifted too far toward the puck side before the shot, which left Toffoli all alone. There was little Ersson could do. 2-0, Devils.
Tyler Toffoli (@tytoff16) cleans up the rebound to extend the lead for the @NJDevils! 🧹 #StadiumSeries
— NHL (@NHL) February 18, 2024
🇺🇸: @ESPNPlus ➡️ https://t.co/Pp9X7OGP3W
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/sEijvXhbA1 pic.twitter.com/n21IPrqrgX
It wasn't necessarily that the Flyers played a bad opening period. They got some sustained offensive pressure and generated shots and a couple of notable chances, but it was all safe. None of it made the Devils sweat.
Nic Deslauriers found a couple of opportunities on the bottom six while crashing in, and Ryan Poheling found himself all alone with the puck in front late in the period after Garnet Hathaway knocked the puck loose from New Jersey in the corner, but all three chances were sent sailing wide.
On the other side, the New Jersey chances, at least initially, were fewer but far more dangerous, and they took greater advantage.
"We had stretches where we had some good minutes and then you go and take a few penalties," defenseman Travis Sanheim, who logged 20:15 of ice time but went minus-3 on his pairing with Cam York, said postgame. "It kinda gets you out of that a little bit. Your momentum is kinda killed a little bit."
But if you need to turn the tides, get Owen Tippett alone in the slot.
🔥 Tipper with a top-shelf ripper. 🔥#StadiumSeries | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/NNDKIUj894
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) February 18, 2024
That shot is just a nightmare for goalies.
That sequence was notable for a couple of other reasons, too.
1) Good sweep of the stick from Egor Zamula to keep it onside and just as good effort and awareness from Travis Konecny to stay with the play and draw attention away.
2) Morgan Frost had a rough first period with a sloppy high-sticking penalty behind the New Jersey net and then the missed assignment on Toffoli's goal. It looked like he was benched for a bit – again – but was instead shuffled into Sean Couturier's place on the line with Tippett and Konecny. Immediately, they got a goal.
If this was November, Tortorella probably doesn't send Frost back out for the rest of the game, but he's played a way more complete and aggressive game up the middle of late, which might have earned him a way longer leash to go out and try again midway through February and with the playoff race only getting hotter.
They do need offense wherever they can get it, after all, and Frost has the skill set to create it. But there is risk that comes with that. Sometimes, it's not going to work, and sometimes it'll get ugly down the other way.
Like on Brendan Smith's second goal of the night when every Flyer on the ice drifted too far to the strong side, leaving Smith all alone when another juicy rebound jumped off of Ersson's pads.
New Jersey goal!
— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) February 18, 2024
Scored by Brendan Smith with 03:24 remaining in the 2nd period.
Assisted by Ondrej Palat and Nico Hischier.
New Jersey: 3
Philadelphia: 1#PHIvsNJD #NJDevils #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/O1jxZcKr2r
Then it compounded quickly when Nathan Bastian picked up the chip at the blue line and beat Ersson glove side to make it 4-1.
2 goals in 1:12 puts the Devils up 4-1 😈 pic.twitter.com/5M2DSvjqPU
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) February 18, 2024
"You know you gotta put the puck somewhere better," Ersson said of his rebound control for the game. "Those [bounces] cost us."
Granted, the workload was heavy for the goaltenders Saturday night. Ersson faced 39 New Jersey shots, stopping 34 of them, and Nico Daws at the other end saw 48 from the Flyers and saved 45.
"I'm sure he'd like to have a couple back, but he made some good saves," Tortorella said of his goaltender. "It's not our goaltender. That's not the reason why we lost. We had some breakdowns. We had opportunities to score, and some really good chances. We don't [convert]. They did."
Credit to a big night from Tippett and that line pairing with Konecny and Frost though. Some clean feeds and a beautiful finish from Tippett led to what's long become a rare power-play goal – and Tippett's second of the night – to at least keep the Flyers in it heading into the third, but Hischier's ripper coming back from the intermission for his second tally all but put the nail in this one.
"We needed another goal in the second period," Tortorella said. "And I thought we were right there knocking on the door, but then we took some penalties and it took us out of our flow."
Hischier x2
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) February 18, 2024
What a shot 👀 pic.twitter.com/weLARxSMRj
This was not the Flyers' night. The outdoor games, historically, are proving never to be now.
With Saturday night's Stadium Series loss, the Flyers are now 1-4-1 all-time in NHL outdoor events.
And more in the lens of this season, this was the first game the Flyers have lost outright to the Devils all season – they still got a point out of them in an OT loss on Nov. 30 and beat them 3-2 in OT on December 19.
There's one more game to go between the two at the very end on April 13, and that might prove to be a big one. The Devils are clawing their way back into the race and just cracked the Flyers considerably late into the game here. This rivalry might end up with some real juice behind it again, for the first time in a very long time, and possibly with a playoff spot on the line.
There's a lot of hockey still to go for the Flyers between now and then though – 26 games in total after Saturday night and up through the end of the season. They're not about to start looking too far ahead. It's only a quick break and then a trip to Chicago on Wednesday up next.
"We're gonna get ready to play our game," Tortorella said. "We're not gonna get into counting points and four-point games and all that. We don't operate that way. We just get ready for our next game. We're on to Chicago. That game scares the s*** out of me – Chicago. I want us ready to play that game. That's the next game. We're not gonna do the math right now with 25-27 games left. We just don't operate that way."
"Unfortunate we didn't get the two [points], but we gotta move on and get ready for the next one," Sanheim said. "I'm not worried about this group. We're gonna be ready to go for the next one."
Given the Prudential Center's proximity to MetLife Stadium, Saturday night's pre-game festivities and team introductions definitely registered the place as a Devils crowd.
There were considerable cheers for the Flyers when they got on the board, but boos met them upon their introduction, Gaslight Anthem played New Jersey's goal song live with each tally, and when Mark Messier and footage of the '94 Rangers – the one thing the Devils fan base hates more than anything – got shown on the video board in an ESPN promo package for the event, that got booed even harder than the Flyers.
Sunday's Rangers-Isles game is probably going to be more neutral, but Saturday night was definitely catered specifically to the Devils.
Gritty did seem to enjoy the Jonas Brothers concert though.
Gritty at the Jonas Brothers update: pic.twitter.com/Tju85EcPXR
— Nick Tricome (@itssnick) February 18, 2024
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
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