For the past two weeks, all the Flyers heard about themselves and all they read about themselves is about how damn good they are and how they’re the Stanley Cup favorite now and blah, blah, blah blah blah.

And if you believe them when they say they don’t read or don’t listen, well then, I have a bridge I want to sell you. Cheap.

See, up in the bubble there’s only so much time you can spend playing video games, or watching Netflix, or running ping pong tournaments when you aren’t playing hockey.

So, it’s only natural to check and see what people are saying about you and your team. Don’t be shocked, you’d do it too if you could. Actors read reviews. Politicians watch the news channels. Why would athletes be any different?

And so it is that we all did a damn good job of inflating the ego of this hockey team. All of us. Fans. Media. The Twitterverse. Podcast hosts. Former players. Everybody. There wasn’t a bad word spoken about the Flyers since the sport returned to our conscience a couple weeks ago.

Don’t think they didn’t notice that. Don’t think this team didn’t start recognizing that they were no longer just some cute story of a team that came out of nowhere to take the hockey world by storm.

The Flyers went from Cinderella to the Giant atop Jack’s beanstalk overnight.

And here they were, stunning three of the best teams in hockey in round robin games to garner that top seed, drawing a team with the 24th-best record in hockey (out of 31 teams) in their first round matchup.

And even though they didn’t play their best 60-minute game against that team – the Montreal Canadiens – they still won the opener of the series.

More plaudits followed. More predictions of how this series would be easy.

So, you see, it’s quite simple for a team to have a collective belief that they were too good for their opponent.

And that’s why getting your ass kicked in Game 2 by a score of 5-0 can happen.

It’s not that Montreal is a better team – they’re not. But credit to the Canadiens for ramping up their level of play and seeing if the Flyers could match it.

By the time the Flyers realized what was happening, they were already down 3-0. A fluky goal made it 4-0. Then Carter Hart was pulled and the game was essentially over.

And if you don’t think they were taking the Canadiens lightly, they all but admitted it post-game. Sure, no one said it specifically, but they definitely danced around it a little bit.

Here are a few examples:

  1. “I’d like to say no,” captain Claude Giroux said when he was asked directly if the Flyers took the Canadiens lightly. “They outplayed us and outworked us. We know that. We have to be better.”
  2. “It’s pretty clear they are at a higher level than we are right now and we have to ramp it up here for Game 3,” said Matt Niskanen.
  3. “We got our butts kicked in all facets of the game,” said coach Alain Vigneault. “Montreal’s will to play the right way was much higher than ours. At this time of year, you don’t expect that. We have to turn the page and move on because there’s no doubt they will. Playoff hockey is about winning four games. They outplayed us… especially in the will department.”
  4. “We can’t win this series by just winning one game,” said Kevin Hayes. “We didn’t have the effort we wanted… We have the right goalies. The right coaches. The right leaders. I have all the faith in our leaders that were are going to respond in the right way in Game 3.”

Giroux would like to say they didn’t take them lightly… but he can’t. Niskanen says it’s clear the Flyers aren’t playing at the Habs’ level and need to “ramp it up.” The coach talked about Montreal’s will being superior to the Flyers.

But it was Hayes who said it best when he said you can’t win a series by winning just one game. In other words, we thought we did enough to just coast on through.

That’s also why he pointed out the leaders would make sure the team played the “right way” in Game 3.

Because Game 2 was most definitely wrong.

There’s no need to really break down the game film. If you didn’t see it with your own eyes, trust me, it was a travesty.

But, we did learn some things, as we always do, watching the game. So, without further ado… Here’s what we learned:

1. The Flyers need to do something about their third pair defense

In the playoffs, there’s no time to let guys “figure it out.” In the regular season, a bad game or two can be glossed over because there is time to fix it and/or find more cohesion.  But, in a best-of-seven, you don’t have that luxury. Each game you got to go with what you think will work best in the moment, even if it might not be what you think will work best in the long-term.

And right now, Justin Braun and Shayne Gostisbehere is not working. At all. They weren’t great together in Game 1, but at least they were passable. In Game 2, they weren’t graded on a curve.

With the team down 1-0 in the first period, they each had a bad turnover in their own end. Neither amounted to a goal, but they were about a minute apart. First Braun. then Ghost.

Then, a few minutes later, this happened:

What you don’t see at the very beginning of the clip is Braun was on the complete opposite side of the ice and skated all the way across (right-to-left) to go after the puck carrier.

Maybe that’s what he was supposed to do. Maybe that’s the system. But, even so, he finds himself trailing to get back in front of the net at the time of the goal.

Was there supposed to be forward help there? Maybe. If so, it was nonexistent. But it seems weird to me that the right defenseman would be skating all over the place in his own end like this.

As for Ghost, he’s positioned properly in front of the net, but I’m not sure why he drops to his knees. Maybe he thinks a shot is coming and he wants to block it? I don’t know. But, by doing that, he takes his ability to be physical in front of the net out of the equation.

The end result is Jesperi Kotkaniemi having an excellent chance from a high-percentage scoring area, and he doesn’t miss.

The third Montreal goal came on the power play – with Gostisbehere in the box for holding. Many were screaming that it was a terrible penalty call, and while it was admittedly a ticky-tack call on the part of referee Gord Dwyer, who was the ref trailing the play and not the one right in front the action, Gostisbehere did ever-so-quickly seem to grab Max Domi’s left shoulder. Domi embellishing the penalty doesn’t help matters, and he probably should have been whistled too for his theatrics, but it’s at least understandable as to why Dwyer makes that call.

Later, on the fourth goal, Braun overskates Joel Armia, who then just throws a shot on net and although Gostisbehere is positioned well on this one, the puck caroms off his skate and past Hart for the goal that all but buried the Flyers.

While it’s hard to pick on Braun and Gostisbehere when the whole team was terrible, they seem to be struggling more together than either of the other defensive pairs. I thought we might see a change here in Game 2, but I was wrong. I have to think though that there will be one for Game 3. Right?

2. The vet haters have crawled out from under their rocks

Claude Giroux has one point, Jake Voracek has a goal and an assist. Kevin Hayes has four assists, although three came in one game. James van Riemsdyk has no points.

These are the four highest-paid players on the team.

So, of course, the trolls, who had to keep the ridiculous opinions to themselves for the better part of the 2020 because the Flyers had been so dominant since Jan. 8, saw an opportunity after Game 2 and latched onto it like leeches:

Yeah, Russ is the biggest troll of them all. I can’t wait for the next Snow the Goalie pod because I will let him have it there.

He’s so good at looking at small samples and using them to make declarative statements.

I’m sure I can go back through the history of hockey and find stretches of five games where the four highest-paid players on a team scored one goal or fewer.

And while the Flyers aren’t going to win a Stanley Cup without eventual production from guys like Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek, Kevin Hayes and James van Riemsdyk, then can in fact win a Stanley Cup without those four guys being the top scorers on the team.

Counting stats only matter on the scoreboard. Not for individuals.

Now, we can sit here and debate if these four players are playing well outside of scoring. In Game 1 I thought Giroux was very good. JVR was decent. Hayes was invisible and Voracek was only good on the power play and looked out of place on the third line.

In Game 2, nobody was good, so that kind of clouds things.

Vigneault did reunite Voracek with Giroux and Sean Couturier in this game in the second period, ending the Joel Farabee experiment on the top line, for the time being. And the second line of Hayes, Scott Laughton and Travis Konecny has been invisible against Montreal after being so dominant in round robin play.

While we await news on Konecny (more on that in a minute), I doubt Vigneault will pull anyone out of the lineup, but we could see some juggling to try and jump start certain players.

After all, when asked about the lack of production from the big money players, Vigneault said, “No doubt you need your top players to be driving the bus. Their intentions are good and it has to transform itself on the ice. [But] tonight the total team was off.”

In other words, yeah.. it would be nice for them to get on the scoresheet, but even if they did, in Game 2, it likely woudn’t have made a difference.

So, I know my partner is going to write something to the effect that this is some sort of travesty that they aren’t scoring. And he’ll use something like this as a talking point:

Yeah… let’s cherry pick two playoff rounds where the Flyers offense was contained to one line with no depth behind it that had nothing to do with the current team – just to make a point.

But, I shouldn’t expect less.

What you should expect is a much better game from the veteran players in Game 3. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.

3. Carter Hart is human

And it’s OK. He wasn’t going to go 16-0 with a 1.00 or better goals against average in the playoffs. These games happen. He’ll be fine. Relax.

4. Travis Konecny’s injury

Look, this one might be serious. He couldn’t put any weight on it and immediately went to the tunnel after blocking a shot with his left ankle.

I’ve poked around, but can’t get anything out of the bubble yet on his condition. I’ll snoop around some more tomorrow. Stay tuned to my Twitter and Snow the Goalie for more details.

I will say this, if Konecny can’t go in Game 3, it would be a significant blow for the Flyers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael Raffl is ready to come back into the lineup, if need be. We’ll see.

5. Not happy with the new Canadiens coach

Vigneault pointed out that Montreal Associate coach Kirk Muller, who is replacing normal head coach Claude Julien for the rest of this series after Julien had to have a stent put into one of the arteries in his heart following Game 1, trotted out his No. 1 power play unit in the third period with the game well in hand.

That’s an unwritten rule, like not stealing a base with more than a six-run lead in baseball, or to stop chucking up threes in basketball when you are up 20 in the fourth quarter.

Still, it happened, and Vigneault said he’d make sure his guys knew about it because he felt it was Muller rubbing it in.

Asked if they noticed it, Hayes said, “Everyone notices everything.” He wouldn’t elaborate further. But the message is clear, which makes me say this.

The Flyers will win Game 3. Handily. Book it.