January 23, 2024
Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports
The Flyers are still lacking a difference-maker to the level of Tampa Bay star Brayden Point.
There's still a difference, and this is still very much a process.
The Philadelphia Flyers, after riding the high of the five-game win streak into the top of the developing playoff picture in the East, stumbled through the weekend back-to-back, then crashed back down to earth against the experienced Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday night, seeing everything they're not in a 6-3 loss.
The Flyers have been good, much better than maybe anyone could have expected by this point of the season, and with a 25-17-6 record and 56 points, they're still very much in the hunt approaching the All-Star break.
But they've now dropped three straight, and in the defeats to Colorado on Saturday and now Tampa Bay on Tuesday specifically, it was obvious what they're still very much lacking compared to the NHL's elite.
They don't have a Nathan MacKinnon, a star capable of taking over at any given moment and who torched them for two goals and four points when the Avalanche were in town over the weekend.
And they don't have a Nikita Kucherov or a Brayden Point, both dangers to score from anywhere on the ice, the focal points of a league-best power play, and the ones who wasted no time doing damage on Tuesday night, putting the Flyers in a 3-0 hole by the early part of the second period.
"They're not as deep as they used to be," head coach John Tortorella said of the Lightning postgame. "They rely on their power play quite a bit, and – I mean, we take two stupid penalties. [Sean Walker's holding penalty], it's ridiculous, [Cam Atkinson's hooking penalty]...they make you pay. So we were chasing the game.
"We fought. We kept on trying to get back into it, but it doesn't take them much to score a goal on the power play. That hurt us tonight."
30 goals on the season for Kuch and it's only January 🫣 pic.twitter.com/Vs4M2U1URf
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) January 24, 2024
The Flyers have pieces, for sure, much better structure and culture in Tortorella's second season behind the bench, too, and a whole lot of fight, which has carried them this far and might at least carry them into late April.
But they're not up there with Colorado yet. They're not up there with Tampa Bay yet – or at least with what they've been for the better part of a decade.
The Flyers are a team that is still learning how to win, and a team that's betting on their best players, their game-changing players – i.e. Matvei Michkov – not even being in the building yet.
This is still very much a process. This is still very much a rebuild. And there is still very much a long ways to go before any sort of jump into serious Stanley Cup contention. The Lightning showed them that Tuesday night.
But the team on the ice now is going to keep fighting like hell getting there, wherever that ends up taking them in the scope of this season.
Cam Atkinson tipped in Joel Farabee's tough angle shot along the goal line to get the Flyers on the board midway through the second and make it a 3-1 game.
Jamie Drysdale fired home a laser from the high slot on the power play to cut the deficit down to one – notching his first goal as a Flyer in the process – a few minutes later, then, after Michael Eyssimont cleaned up a rebound to put Tampa back up by two before the second intermission, Cam York carried the puck into the offensive zone then batted in his own deflected shot to keep Philly in it coming back out for the third at 4-on4 – "I used to play baseball when I was younger, so I'll cut it to that," York quipped afterward.
Jamie Drysdale buries his first as a Flyer! 🟠⚫ pic.twitter.com/4K4TVpa8Zg
— NHL (@NHL) January 24, 2024
But that wasn't enough against a Lightning team that has more star power and far more experience to pull from.
The Flyers don't have those kinds of game-changers or that level of know-how. Not yet. But they're getting there, and fighting to it.
"It's felt like that, honestly, every game we've been down," York said. "We've battled back and been right there. Just a couple of bounces here and there, and it doesn't go our way.
"I think we're confident enough to know that we can come back in games, and tonight was another situation where we were right there."
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