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Flyers Lose 4-2 in a Tough Game vs. the Minnesota Wild, the Refs, and Themselves
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This ended up being the game-winner for the Minnesota Wild in a 4-2 victory in Philly on Tuesday night:
Puck bounces off the ref and lands with Matt Boldy. Dan Vladar makes the save and Joel Eriksson Ek knocks in the rebound. Assist goes to Kyle Rehman along the boards.
To be fair, Jamie Drysdale had the entire right side of the ice and flipped the puck right into the ref’s feet. He tried to jump and it hit him anyway. Trevor Zegras skated over to Rehman after the goal and gave him some sarcastic stick taps, which resulted in a 10-minute misconduct:
“I don’t want to see it,” said Rick Tocchet after the loss. “You’re showing the ref up. Whether (or not) you’re pissed, you can’t tap the ice. You shouldn’t do that.”
Zegras said he was “frustrated, can’t be doing that.”
Another one of those nights for the Flyers, who are now 4-9-4 on the season with 12 points. They did battle back in the third period to make it a 3-2 game, and maybe deserved at least a point for the way they responded and battled back. It felt like that third goal was coming, but Minnesota held on before finding an empty netter.
“I thought we played a pretty good game,” said Tocchet. “Obviously you can’t stake a team like that a 3-0 (lead). For me it’s just missed chances. We had 23 missed opportunities. I think we had 9 or 10 scoring chances where we missed the net, and they don’t. This is where we can learn from some of the best players, like Boldy on the third goal. He shoots for a rebound. He doesn’t try to score. We try to score from those places and we shoot the puck wide. We call them location shots. Make the goalie handle it and maybe there’s a rebound. We have to get better at another level, because 23 missed shots. You gotta hit the net.”
Minnesota didn’t have a lot of chances in the third. That top line they have is ridiculous though. Matt Boldy, Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek. Jeez Louise. Maybe the game goes differently if the Flyers don’t fall in an early hole and then run into a bit of bad luck in the 2nd period. Maybe Matvei Michkov should be getting more ice time, considering he’s your leading scorer. Plenty of things to think about, but it’s difficult to win when you are battling three opponents in Minnesota, the refs, and yourself.
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