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Bag by Bag: Flyers Extend Losing Streak to Nine Games
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The Flyers lost again on Thursday night, this time 2-1 to the Detroit Red Wings.
They went up 1-0 in the first period and looked decent enough, then Detroit got one back in the second period before scoring late in the third:
The fourth liners are out there on the game-losing goal. It’s Jack Studnicka, Noel Acciari, and Porter Martone for Michael Bunting at that particular moment, with the third-line defensive pair of Simon Benoit and David Jiricek.
Which begs the question –
Why?
Why was the Jack Studnicka line out there anyway? You’ve got five minutes left in a 1-1 game. You haven’t won a game this season. The top three lines haven’t done anything this year, so nobody should expect anything from the fourth line either.
Rick Tocchet wasn’t asked about this specifically after the game, but he did say this:
“There’s moments of the game where you have to come through somehow, whether it’s scoring a goal or making a defensive stop. We’re getting great goaltending… We gotta see some big moments here and we’re not getting them.”
…
“You just can’t have 4-5 people (contributing). Our team, you need everybody to contribute. Not just 4-5 guys.”
Frustrating. Annoying. They played a pretty good game against Seattle and showed some fight in coming back from a 2-0 deficit to at least force a shootout and claim a loser point. But this one felt like a step back. 11 goals in 9 games. Season already in the toilet on October 16th. They are going to be left in the dust when the Sixers start playing, because the few neutrals who still care at this point will switch into LeBron mode. If the Eagles weren’t 2-3 with Jalen Hurts on the shelf, the slice of the Flyers attention pie might already be nonexistent.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com