March 05, 2024
Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports
The road ahead won't get any easier for Scott Laughton, Sam Ersson, and the Flyers.
The Flyers will take the point, but they could've really used the full two that were up for grabs Monday night against St. Louis.
A 2019-esque wall put up by Jordan Binnington that extended all the way into the shootout stopped them short of it though in a 2-1 defeat.
Moving to 32-23-8, the Flyers' 72 points still have them in decent shape at third in the Metro Division, keeping them six points up on the Islanders in fourth and at pace with the East's two wild card teams in Detroit and Tampa Bay entering Tuesday night's slate of games.
But again, they're far from smooth sailing into April, not this late into the season and not with another gauntlet run in the schedule coming up.
They need to be at their absolute best.
"We're gonna have to," defenseman Travis Sanheim said postgame Monday night. "That's the stretch that we're in. We gotta be getting better each and every game. These are important points. This is where we want to be. This is the stretch we want to be in where we have a chance to make the playoffs. We're gonna take it day by day, game by game, and continue to get better."
Here are a few thoughts on the Flyers' road to it after Monday night's shootout loss...
So looking at the schedule ahead, you can quickly put together why those two points that were available Monday night were some important ones to try and grab.
The Florida Panthers, who have been the best team in the East since coming back for the second half, are up on Thursday night down in Sunrise after beating the Metro-leading Rangers Monday night. Then it's Tampa again, perhaps a bit of a break against San Jose back at home (though far from a guarantee), and then Toronto and Boston twice each, Florida again, and another shot at the Rangers in New York before the month is even out.
That little extra buffer would've been nice to have, and the Flyers have gotten some pretty considerable ones already thanks to the Devils and Penguins continually tripping over themselves in the standings behind them, but little looks like it's going to come easy the rest of the way.
If the Flyers are going to pull this off and make it to the playoffs, they're going to have to earn and fight for every bit of it.
"I think games just get tighter as we go along here and it's harder to win hockey games," Scott Laughton, who found a goal in his feet while crashing toward the St. Louis net Monday night said afterward. "We haven't been in this position in a while, a lot of our young guys haven't and we need to be that much better. It's a couple of bounces here and there that change games. It's gonna be huge."
And hopefully getting leading-scorer Travis Konecny back from injury is the type of huge boost they need going into this stretch.
"We have found a way to get points," head coach John Tortorella said. "You gotta remember we're missing a pretty important guy, and I think the guys have rallied and found a way to get some points. I'm not going to assess it to the bones as far as what you're looking for. We'll be ready to play. I don't look at it as looking at the group of games. They get tomorrow off, I'm looking toward the practice prior to going to Florida. That's our next opponent, probably the best team in the league right now. We take 'em on, do the best we can."
Friday's trade deadline is still in the shuffle of all this too, though it's still unclear how exactly that's going to go. The names that are out there – Nick Seeler, Sean Walker, Scott Laughton, and so on – are out there, but so are general manager Danny Brière's reportedly high-asking prices for future assets.
No one has seemed to flinch on the trade market, not yet at least, and it might be an anxious few days here waiting to see if anyone will – Flyers included.
*It's worth noting too about the deadline that Seeler took a shot off the skate in the second period Monday night that had him down and clearly hurting. He was back out to start the third period, but didn't play the last chunk of it and none of the overtime period. Something to keep an eye on.
Cam York might have put up one of his most complete efforts of the season Monday night as he made a series of great defensive plays that often led to the Flyers taking the puck the other way.
This sequence in the second period in particular was a real standout when York swept the puck away into the corner as the Blue's Jordan Kyrou came streaking in with it on the rush and then slid over to the other side of the net as he was recovering his dropped stick to eat a shot block on Nick Leddy's look to deny the scoring chance:
Cam York has entered elite rush defender mode (And apparently elite shot blocker mode now?)#STLvsPHI #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/1Nd9MPkK2P
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) March 5, 2024
The 23-year old kept staying after the puck though and came just a hair shy of netting the game-winner when he came flying into the slot unmarked during a Flyers' possession in the overtime period but ripped the shot off the crossbar.
A brutal outcome in a sequence where everything else went near perfectly.
Still, York logged a sizable 25:45 of ice time Monday night and registered three shots on goal while keeping the Blues cleared out from Philly's own net down the other way. And since Jamie Drysdale went out with injury last weekend against Pittsburgh, he's stepped it up in the four games since with an even plus-minus rating, two goals at a shooting percentage of 22.2 percent, and at an average 23:10 of ice time.
York's offense was always his selling point, but his defense?
"I think he's one of our best defenders," Tortorella said. "You guys keep talking about offense. I think he's one of our best defenders. He can use his legs offensively, has a great chance – I think it hits the crossbar there at the end. We want him up the ice. And he has the legs that he'll be able to play both ends."
Samuel Ersson had another stellar start in goal Monday night, making 24 of 25 saves, including this tricky and very fortunate one that he was able to clear away with his pads on St. Louis' Pavel Buchnevich.
Sam Ersson, thank you. pic.twitter.com/b88JauPm3c
— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) March 5, 2024
It was highly sound defensive structure, only cracked by an open ice turnover and Kevin Hayes jumping on it over top on the breakaway with a move I think even he froze himself on.
They're not always pretty but they count just the same. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/ueOHnd2SBN
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) March 5, 2024
Tyson Foerster's scoring streak broke Monday night, but man, was he doing everything to make sure it wouldn't.
Not even five minutes in and Tyson Foerster has already done something super cool. pic.twitter.com/Azc4KQiEa8
— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) March 5, 2024
That was the first period, and there were at least three more chances generated from him before the horn sound for the first intermission. He went on to register a game-high six shots on goal.
The goals are finally piling up for the 22-year old winger, and he's sure working to make sure it stays that way now.
Is still not great. They went 0-for-2 for Monday night, which wasn't super ample opportunity, but with the game tied nearing the midway point of the third, the Flyers got a golden one when Oskar Sundqvist went to the box for slashing Foerster and couldn't manage anything out of it.
Going back to the February 15 overtime loss in Toronto, the Flyers' power play unit is 4-for-27. Owen Tippett has two of those goals while Konecny and Foerster have the others. They're outputting at a woeful 12.9 success rate for the season, with only Chicago faring worse at 12.7 percent.
And at this point, more than two-thirds through the season, there might not be much to do in the way of fixing. Just send them out there and hope for the best.
It's hard to imagine that the power play struggles won't become more of an issue as the season really starts coming down to the wire. When good teams err, better ones make them play, and the Flyers just haven't been able to do that.
At least the penalty kill is still fantastic. They held St. Louis 0-for-3 on their man-advantages Monday night to continue at an NHL-best rate of 86.5 percent and were definitely fishing for another shorthanded goal to try and break things open.
Didn't bounce that way this time.
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