It was a spooky weekend in Philadelphia, and I’m not talking about Thursday’s Halloween game. A weekend of injuries, lackluster goaltending, and broken streaks left the Flyers to face a Canadian sweep. Back-to-back home games ended with no points for the Flyers, as they fell 5-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday and 2-1 to the Calgary Flames on Sunday.
After 4 points in the last five games, Flyers captain Sean Couturier was out on Saturday in a game time decision. Couturier blocked a shot up high Thursday night, and while he was on the ice for the team skate on Saturday, he was not fit to return to gameplay. He returned to play on Sunday against Calgary.
The injury bug was passed around to Tyson Foerster, who blocked a shot in the first period against Toronto, yet came back for the rest of the game after a few shifts down the tunnel. The team shared after the game that upon taking his skate off, Foerster couldn’t put any pressure on the foot. He was a scratch for Sunday night and will take some time off throughout the week as his swelling goes down, and will be reevaluated by the end of the week. He was placed on IR on Monday morning as Emil Andrae was called up to fill his spot in the coming games. Foerster is tied with Zegras for second most goals this season, only behind Owen Tippett, who filled his spot on Sunday alongside Bobby Brink and Noah Cates. However, Tippett hasn’t scored a goal in five games, and he didn’t fit the chemistry on Sunday either.
Tippett played alongside Brink and Cates for the first two periods Sunday, yet was moved to the top line alongside Zegras and Dvorak for the third. Brink remained on the second line alongside Grebenkin and Konecny, yet Brink was sent to the third line beside Michkov and Couturier. It’s disappointing to halt the chemistry this team has fostered so far, and I’m curious to see how Tocchet will handle the lineup until Foerster returns. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the third period pairings mostly stick throughout the week, as they did earn the only goal of the night.
Enough about the injuries, let’s get into what else went wrong. Dan Vladar played his worst game yet with the Flyers, allowing 3 goals on 18 shots in the first two periods against Toronto. Alongside the disappointing-at-best performance, our offense scored one goal on 14 shots in the first 40 minutes of play. The early goal was scored by Dvorak just beyond the first minute of play with assists by Grebenkin and Konecny. After Vladar broke his streak for the 2nd-longest streak of no more than two goals allowed in consecutive games (6), he was pulled for the final period. After Ersson had sustained a lower-body injury earlier in the week, Kolosov had been called up and saved all 7 shots against him in the third period.
Yet this wasn’t enough. The Flyers had 19 shots on goal in the third period alone, and only closed on one of them. Tyson Foerster earned himself a power play goal with the assists from Zegras and Michkov, making the game 4-2. However, an empty net goal from Toronto with just a little less than 20 seconds left in the game made the final score 5-2. It was a shockingly weak offensive game, especially given the chances this young team has worked to make for themselves so far this year. Losing Couturier had a ripple effect on the lineup, as did losing Foerster on Sunday. All of the offensive grit and promising goaltending just simply wasn’t there against an offensively dominant team with some of the league’s top scorers. With that, the Flyers 3-game win streak came to an end.
Sunday’s results were less disappointing against a much less daunting team, yet they still fell 2-1. Kolosov played well for his first start of the season, allowing only two goals on 21 shots to bring his season average to a .929 SV%. Furthermore, both goals he allowed were challenging situations where his view was blocked by mostly his own teammates, especially Jonathan Huberdeau’s goal in the second period. The Flyers’ lone goal of the night came in the third period with a wrist shot off the feed from Cates, his new linemate for the night as I previously explained.
It wasn’t necessarily a horrible game given the circumstances of a substantial injury and third-string goalie. It was certainly a messy game as the entire lineup was thrown off, and it showed. As I’ve said before, there has been a lot of positive chemistry on this team so far. You can’t necessarily expect that to carry over with a young team in the second of a back-to-back game. Sunday did however show this team that the adjustability of this team is a struggle, as seen in years past with our disappointing power play statistics.
The Flyers look to adjust to the temporary lineup as they begin a 2-game road trip tonight at 7:00pm in Montreal.
Philly's Next Shift 