November 25, 2016
With 5:15 remaining in the first period, New York Rangers rookie winger Jimmy Vesey collected the puck in his own zone and turned on the jets, moving up the right boards. The Rangers, if they hurried, had a chance at a two-on-one thanks to a poor pinch by Andrew MacDonald in the offensive zone.
If you have been paying even a modicum attention to the Flyers season, it won’t surprise you that the Rangers took that chance. Vesey’s saucer pass was right on the money, past Shayne Gostisbehere and onto the waiting stick of Matt Puempel. Puempel promptly wristed one past Steve Mason, and New York led 2-0 all of the sudden:
From the Flyers’ perspective, the feeling was all too familiar: Wait, how did this happen so fast?
And the answer, as has been the case far too often in the season’s first 22 games, was couple of backbreaking mistakes.
“You know, we made a couple costly mistakes where guys were left alone out front and we have to clean those up because it cost us the game,” Mason said. “It’s definitely something we need to focus on a little bit.”
With Puempel’s goal, the Flyers had authored the same first period script we have seen plenty of times in October and November: Out-shoot the opposition, carve out more offensive zone time, make a couple of critical mistakes, see both of those mistakes end up in the back of the net, and trail by one or two goals.
The Rangers beat the Flyers 3-2 in the first half of a Black Friday day-night doubleheader at the Sports Complex, dropping the Orange and Black’s record to 9-10-3 in the process.
"We made probably two or three critical errors that ended up in the back of our net, but for the most part the first period was pretty good," Dave Hakstol said. "Second period, same thing, but we came out both periods losing the first period two nothing and the second period being down 3-0."
For the Flyers, this game boiled down to a couple of key mistakes that they simply can’t make and also expect to win games.
• Scott Laughton makes a bad turnover behind his own net, 1-0 Rangers.
• MacDonald makes a bad pinch in the offensive zone, 2-0 Rangers.
• Mark Streit channels Eli Manning and throws a pass in nobody’s general direction in his own zone, 3-0 Rangers.
These types of plays are how the Flyers can drop more games than they win despite having an advantage in the possession battle.
"I think we played a good game today," Jake Voracek said. "I’m not sure what you guys saw from up there but like I said, we have to get that first goal once in a while. It saves a lot of energy and like I said it is what it is. It’s still early in the season but we’ve lost too many points because of that.”
To their credit, the Flyers were able to battle back in the third period. They got their first goal when MacDonald (of all people) made an excellent play in the offensive zone to bank the puck off Chris VandeVelde’s skate and into the back of the net:
And after Hakstol pulled Mason with three minutes left in the game, the Flyers were able to pour on as much pressure as you could reasonably expect. With a little over two minutes left, Brayden Schenn deflected a Gostisbehere slapper past Henrik Lundqvist to make the score 3-2. At that point, the “Let’s go Rangers” chants died down, at least momentarily:
And then the Flyers threw the kitchen sink at Lundqvist in the final seconds looking for the tying goal, but the 34-year-old former Vezina winner was able to hold up and thwart the Orange and Black attack.
“He’s one of the best in the business so you need to stay with it," Claude Giroux said. "And I think we did. We were crashing the net, especially in the 3rd period and we had a lot of chances in the 3rd. Great scrums in front of the net, and he played well.”
For New York, King Henrik was unsurprisingly excellent, stopping 40 of 42 Flyers shots. The Flyers’ longtime divisional nemesis was his normal excellent self and played a major part in winning the game for New York, but again, it boils down to the key turnovers for the Flyers.
“Yeah the little details in the game we need to pay attention to," Giroux said. "But at the same time I think we’re playing a lot better than the start of the year and we are not doing as many turnovers as the start of the year."
Trailing Puempel on his goal after making a poor pinch was MacDonald, a player whose presence on the ice is pretty questionable. Up in the press box sitting as a healthy scratch was Michael Del Zotto, who looked a bit rusty in the seven games since coming back from injury to start the season. Still, Del Zotto has been one of the Flyers’ best defenseman over the past two seasons. MacDonald has not, and he struggled for large portions of his early-season ice time as well.
When asked about the effectiveness of his defensive pairings, Hakstol said that he feels the Flyers are alright on the blue line.
“We have been real consistent with our D pairs," Hakstol said. "There has been a lot of real good play out of the group. We have stayed with the same group. Like I said tonight there were one or two errors we have to pull out of our game that are hurting us. So, we have to clean that up.”
One thing is for sure: Whoever is on the ice, whatever the combinations are, the mistakes have to stop. And if the Flyers want to get their season back on the right track, they have to stop fairly soon.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
