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Crappy New Year’s – Thoughts After a Lackluster Flyers Loss to the Kings

Anthony SanFilippo

By Anthony SanFilippo

Published:

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

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It was obvious by the lack of Twitter activity last night that a large percentage of the Flyers faithful were otherwise occupied and weren’t tuned into the game in Los Angeles as we approached the calendar flip to 2020.

As someone who chose hockey over hob-nobbing and revelry, I can tell you that you made the right call, and I didn’t.

It was obvious 20 minutes into the game that the Flyers were just going through the motions in what was ultimately a 5-3 loss to the offensively inept Los Angeles Kings.

Yep, for anyone else who was tuned in with me, this game made the champagne taste sour about an hour after it ended.

That’s because the seemingly disinterested Flyers got behind the Kings 4-0 in the first period. Consider the Kings had only scored 10 goals in the last five games, that’s an ugly number.

Meanwhile, the usually reliable penalty kill looked like the version that resided at the bottom of the league the past two seasons. Disjointed. Out of position. Lacking energy.

It was ugly.

And speaking of that missing energy, it wasn’t lost on the coach.

On Saturday, Alain Vigneault said he didn’t have anything good to say about any players on his team, and last night he says there a couple of guys who aren’t playing with the energy they need.

That’s as close as he’ll come to ever calling players out, and I’m sure there’s going to be questions about who he is talking about. It’s hard to say as to who specifically, as 5-on-5, the Flyers weren’t terrible. They weren’t good mind you, but they were average enough that no one stood out as lazy.

However, it’s worth noting that AV wasn’t happy with his defensive pairings in the game and they completely juggled that grouping in the third period while the lines predominantly stayed together.

From my perspective, on the blue line Shayne Gostisbehere wasn’t good, Travis Sanheim had a down game and Robert Hagg, while he was fine in his own end, looked like he was handling a grenade every time the puck was on his stick.

AV hinted at the end of his press availability that Phil Myers could get back in the lineup. Hagg is the likely choice to go back out, but if one of the players AV was talking about lacking energy was Gostisbehere, then another benching could be coming his way.

Up front, at 5-on-5 the top line was pretty strong and the depth lines were OK. But the second line of James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Hayes, and Travis Konecny was pretty awful.

It’s hard to knock Hayes, who has been really good for an extended period of time for the Flyers, and this could have just been a down game for him, but Konecny, who earned his first All-Star nod for his play in the first half of the season, hasn’t been himself since coming back from the concussion and JVR could be looking at a line demotion again if he’s going to have this kind of lackadaisical effort.

I would expect a line switch again before tomorrow’s game in Vegas. Maybe Konecny back up top with Claude Giroux and Couturier, Jake Voracek back on the second line with Hayes and maybe Joel Farabee on the left side, with JVR dropping down to fourth line duty with Misha Vorobyev and Nic Aube-Kubel, who, in their limited ice time against the Kings, stood out as players WITH energy.

Special Teams a Mess

Three power play goals against as well as a shorthanded goal allowed (and almost two more where it not for good saves) can’t happen if you expect to win games:

Yeah, the Flyers are entering 2020 with a special teams black eye.

On two of those power plays, the usually reliable foursome of Giroux, Couturier, Ivan Provorov and Matt Niskanen, got caught standing around and not being aggressive.

The first Kings goal was the result of really good puck movement on a set play:

Couturier really doesn’t do a good enough job of denying Alex Iafallo the space he needs to redirect this shot. There is a lame stick check/slash, but Iafallo is able to get really good position for this re-direct. And while this is what a set play looks like when it works to perfection, it’s also able to happen because the Flyers got caught chasing the puck a bit. Sometimes less is more, and taking away passing lanes is more important than challenging the puck.

The next goal was the result of two really good individual efforts by the Kings – the first by Anze Kopitar to weave through the Flyers with precision and then Tyler Toffoli to follow his own shot after an initial really good save by Brian Elliott.

However, I have to wonder why Couturier is caught with his skates in cement again on this one:

He goes about five seconds without a skate stride there. Just kind of gliding. It’s really out of character for him.

On a side note, I mentioned on Snow the Goalie on Monday that Toffoli would look good in orange and black at the trade deadline. He’s a pending unrestricted free agent and he adds scoring potential to a lineup that could use some.

I think the Flyers will kick the tires on him as well as J.G. Pageau and Tyler Ennis in Ottawa and Chris Kreider with the Rangers.

Anyway, back to the game…

This was the third one, and really put the nail in the coffin early in the third period, making it 5-1:

Vorobyev looks a little out of position here, and although Justin Braun comes out to challenge Martin Frk, he doesn’t really get into a shot blocking position and ends up screening Carter Hart in the process – and based on his reaction, he knows it.

Just bad all around penalty killing.

The Flyers did come back and score three times to try and make a game of it on goals by Braun (his first as a Flyer), Giroux (on the power play off a beauty of a pass from Voracek) and Scott Laughton (who had a slapper by Braun go off his skate), but by that point, most everyone had switched over to watch the ball drop at Times Square, and really, you couldn’t blame them.

Organ Trolling

This was a fun little nugget from the game:

She’s not wrong. It was actually played twice. Later in the game as well.

And here’s the explanation as to why from the organist himself:

Seems innocent enough, but you have to wonder if it would have happened if the Kings didn’t score 1-2-3-4-5 goals?

Finally, wanted to share this picture of David Boreanaz and his wife Jaime wearing Oskar Strong shirts:

Biscuit Tees, run by Bernie Parent’s daughter Kim and her business partner Jodi Smith, expects to eclipse the $200,000 mark in the coming days, money which will be donated to Hockey Fights Cancer as a result of the production of these t-shirts.

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Anthony SanFilippo
Anthony SanFilippo

Anthony SanFilippo writes about the Phillies and Flyers for Crossing Broad and hosts a pair of related podcasts (Crossed Up and Snow the Goalie). A part of the Philadelphia sports media for a quarter century, Anthony also dabbles in acting, directing, teaching, and strategic marketing, which is why he has no time to do anything, but does it anyway. Follow him on Twitter @AntSanPhilly.

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