Stick a Pitchfork in Them: Thoughts after Devils 5, Flyers 3
The Flyers were officially eliminated from playoff contention Thursday.
The unofficial date came one month earlier when they lost 6-1 in Buffalo, ending the Sabres’ 18-game winless streak.
Which means we’ve been diligently writing stories about this team for an entire month knowing this would be the outcome and sharing in the frustration and anger with all of the Philadelphia hockey fans.
Someone please tweet The Maestro and tell him we deserve hazard pay.
The one break for the Flyers is that their official burial came almost simultaneously with the Eagles drafting the Heisman Trophy winner, so 99.9% of the city was distracted.
Nevertheless, it’s over. Oh, there’s still six games remaining to see if any of the young players really stand out to you or to say goodbye to others who won’t be wearing the Flyers uniform when the season starts back up in early October, but, the reality is, anything that happens over the final 10 days of the season, barring a serious injury, will have little to no impact on what the Flyers ultimately need to do to wash the taste of the 2020-21 season out of their mouth and come back with what they hope will be a Scope-scented new look and feel for 2021-22.
There’s really nothing to show you or tell you about the game that eliminated the team that you haven’t seen 1,000 times already this season.
Alex Lyon was in goal. He’s not an NHL goalie, so, you knew the Devils were going to score. The Devils scored twice on the power play, marking the first time all season they scored multiple power play goals in successive games. which begged this question:
How bad does the Flyers PK have to be to continue to allow one of the worst power plays in recent memory to score at will like they have?
— Anthony SanFilippo (@AntSanPhilly) April 29, 2021
The Flyers PK has a 72.9% kill rate. That ranks 30th in the NHL, ahead of only the Devils.
“One thing I will say is we’re trying to work some of our young personnel in and it has been a learning experience,” coach Alain Vigneault said after the game. “Last year, we had a couple of more veteran players there that had killed a bit in those situations before. This year, we’re working in a couple of guys. Phil Myers, for an example, last year never killed; it was (Matt Niskanen or Justin Braun) over the boards. This year, we’re throwing over the boards him and… I don’t want to get into specific names there, but obviously trying to work in some personnel and it’s made our penalty-killing a little bit more challenging.”
Sorry, that excuse would only work if the plan coming into the season was one of development and fans were supposed to be patient and understanding. That wasn’t the case. Coming into the season, and much of the first six weeks of the season was spent talking about competing for the Stanley Cup. As such, there isn’t really room for that kind of error in such a critical part of the game.
Now, it’s possible the Flyers identified their flaws sooner than they have ever admitted publicly and started using the PK as an opportunity for younger players to gain experience rather than be bullish on that area of special teams being as stingy as it possibly can, but in lieu of that public admission, AV’s excuse comes off as lame, even if it is accurate.
The goal scorers in the game for the Flyers were Scott Laughton, Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny. Jake Voracek also picked up a pair of assists.
Laughton’s goal was noteworthy because it was the Flyers FIRST shorthanded goal of the season:
Scott Laughton got the Flyers on the board with this shorthanded goal, but the Devils got the tally right back fewer than two minutes later.
Flyers trail, 3-1. pic.twitter.com/oXx4DlOqw1
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) April 30, 2021
As evidenced by the NBCS tweet above, the Flyers immediately gave the goal back after Laughton scored. It was actually 1:46 of game time later, but it was like the 34,000th time this season the Flyers did that.
You know what else felt like 34,000 times? The Flyers giving up the first goal and trailing after the first period by multiple goals. Yep, both of those things happened Thursday as well.
The only other thing really worth noting is AV scratched alternate captain Kevin Hayes for this game, the first game Hayes missed as a member of the Flyers.
AV said the scratch was performance-based.
Frankly, that’s kind of a ballsy move at this point. Yes, some might argue that this is a move that would have been better served earlier in the season when the Flyers were still in the race and could have served as a wakeup call in the locker room. Maybe so. But the fact is, any time you bench a player who is in your leadership group, and it’s based on a lack of performance, it should be identified as more than just a message being sent to the player or to the locker room and rather should set off several alarm bells that there is something bigger at play here than just a “we need you to be better in these next six games that don’t matter.”
This is definitely something worth keeping an eye on over the final two weeks of the season, and maybe even beyond it.
All right, enough from me. Go back to your DeVonta Smith celebratory dancing. We’ll catch up on the weekend.
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