What began as a week in a promising direction turned into the same tired act that began the season, and led to Head Coach Peter Laviolette’s dismissal. New HC Craig Berube had to have been feeling pretty decent about the Flyers first win of the year in his debut, and even with all the talk about a re-commitment to quality zone to zone play, the steps forward were slight at best.
Last night was the worst of the three featured weekly games, with the Flyers dropping a contest to the host Detroit Red Wings by a score of 5-2. The score I just mentioned is incredibly misleading because for the most part the Flyers were dominating the Wings at even strength, and this was the case for much of the game. It’s when the penalty issues yet again reared its ugly head that the train came off the rails for Philly. Thanks to 7 Flyer penalties, the Red Wings rattled off 3 goals, all they required to put Giroux and Co. to bed. The penalty bug was made worse by the fact, yes fact, that the referees seemingly allowed the Wings to play wayyyyy more clutch and grab hockey than was allowed in return for the Flyers. Matt Read should have had two calls go his way, and that’s just how Read was treated. One can argue that in the Joe the zebra push slides a little on the Winged Wheel side, but make no mistake, this is all just an excuse in the end, meant to cover up the fact that Philly should have done their homework and saw it coming before taking the ice to begin with. There were no scapegoats, a couple of shady penalties, but the Flyers needed to tighten up on their discipline after witnessing how on the Wing PP was, and did the opposite.
The highlight of the night was watching the three kid call ups performing admirably, something I’m certain a lot of Flyers fans were looking forward to. No, power forward Tye McGinn isn’t going to light the world on fire, but he plays a nice game, a well rounded one, and is perfect for at least consistent time on the third line. I want Tye to stay, did last year as well, but Hall and Rosehill were (un)necessary pickups apparently, and so he went back down to the Phantoms. Michael Raffl displayed the talent in almost 14 minutes of ice time that made him such an exciting prospect, and the reason Simon Gagne isn’t wearing the number 12 instead. He worked along the boards quite well, flashed some solid passing at times, and threw his body down for a blocked shot. My favorite call up and perhaps the one that should have happened two games into the season and not five was that of defenseman Erik Gustafsson. He slapped a long bouncing puck somehow past star Wing goalie Jimmy Howard on a smart play, something the Flyers actually attempted to do a few other times in hopes of repeating history. Gus has to be due, he says and knows all the right things on the NHL level, he just needs a chance to demonstrate his skills and an opportunity to earn Berube’s trust. Either way, he plays better than Meszaros has, and probably would the rest of the way if given a chance to do so. For all the chatter about how good Kimmo is (was), that’s who Erik reminds me of, he just needs to develop on the NHL ice now.
The Wings won because they played intelligently and created impressive on the fly plays within the offensive zone, plays that goalie Ray Emery nor the Flyers defenders had a chance to defend. The power plays already had them at a disadvantage, and then having Pavel Datsyuk and Hank Zetterberg dangling and alley ooping to each other for separate goals was the death knell. Datsyuk flipped in a crazy backhand, something he’s probably the greatest on the planet at doing anyway, and Zetterberg was fed a perfect one time shot in the opposite direction of where the Wings zooming offense had pulled Emery towards, leaving him virtually no chance at snagging the top shelf wrister.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from these games is the fact that the Flyers do seem to be moving in the right direction, they have improved steadily on even strength and the shot selection keeps getting closer and closer to finally landing in the net. It’s the penalties, the sloppy play that leads to a needless penalty kill, that is dooming the Flyers to a tough stretch. They need to stay out of the box, and more importantly, they need to create plays that lead to the other team landing in it. They had a power play and were so undisciplined that they actually committed a penalty during it. This has got to stop, and fast, if Philly has a shot at at least getting back to .500, and they’ll have to do it without Scott Hartnell and Vincent Lecavalier, the former of which is going to be out for much longer than originally anticipated.
Claude Giroux managed to get his first point of the season last night, and sometimes that’s all it takes for a star player to get on a roll. He’ ll have to do it with his line mate on the shelf, and he’ll have to assert himself with whoever he plays immediately. This team goes as the Captain does, fingers crossed that first point was a wake up call.
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