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Royal Treatment: Thoughts after Kings 6, Flyers 3

Anthony SanFilippo

By Anthony SanFilippo

Published:

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

This road trip has been the archetype of the Philadelphia Flyers on-ice brand for the better part of a decade.

Three games played, three points. One win. One loss. One loss with extra time, so a loser point is rewarded.

It’s not just the symmetry of the mediocrity that is the shining example of Flyers hockey. Rather, it’s how these three games played out.

First was the win, in a game they didn’t deserve to win, but they did because their goalie played well, their opponent, in this case the Seattle Kraken, played their ass off but simply aren’t talented enough to win with any consistency and although they put a scare into the Flyers, lost anyway, and the Flyers got timely goals late in regulation to tie the score, and then in the extra session to win it.

Second was the overtime loss, in a game that should have shown much better energy and more signs of life, especially after the fortunate outcome the night before, the team inexplicably fell flat. Despite the Herculean effort by a rookie goalie making his first NHL start, and another late goal to force overtime, the Flyers lost to a seemingly inferior opponent, in this case the San Jose Sharks, leaving fans frustrated.

And third was Saturday night, a game where they played infinitely better on the whole, but couldn’t get a break when they needed one – or a save when they needed one either – and after getting burned by a mistake off the opening faceoff, were left to chase the game the rest of the way and never could quite get over the hump, this time losing to the Los Angeles Kings 6-3.

Each of these games has a nickname – Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

And Saturday’s was frustrating because it was the second straight game where the Flyers could have overcome the 10-game losing streak from last month and get back into an Eastern Conference playoff spot.

It also ended the Flyers’ seven-game point streak.

The team will tell you that there were good signs in this game – and there were. They’ll tell you that they are starting to get healthy again finally, as three players have been removed from the COVID-19 protocol and could be available for Tuesday’s game in Anaheim (Well, Carter Hart and Scott Laughton should be available. Derick Brassard is still doubtful as he is coming off an injury, which begs the question, why fly him across the country for one day to practice with the team just to fly back across the country after the game if he’s not going to play?)

All that might be true, but does it matter? Is it just poppycock in the grand scheme of things, because the Flyers have little chance of getting out of the wild card race unless it’s a complete collapse, because they likely aren’t going to win enough, nor the teams at the top of the division lose enough, for there to be a great bit of upward mobility.

Is there time left for them to get it right? Yes, but the Flyers are starting to run low on remaining chances.

After the next two games at Anaheim Tuesday and home against Pittsburgh Thursday, the Flyers will have 12 games remaining before the previously scheduled Olympic Break, that now will be used to make up the 89 (and counting) games that have been postponed in the NHL and yet to be rescheduled.

Of those 12 games, 10 of them are against teams that are currently one point better than the Flyers in the standings, are dead even points-wise, or are behind the Flyers in the standings.

This is it. This month is when you decide who you are. You decide if your identity is as a scrappy, never-say-die team that can be a pain in the ass to any team in hockey, or, that your identity is that you remain a rudderless ship, drifting about aimlessly at sea, having spun around so much that you’ve lost all sense of direction and even worse, all sense of who you are as a team.

One month. Fourteen games. Then we can finally talk about the future, how to shape it, and who should be doing the molding.

The LA Game

I was coerced to go out for a beer for the second consecutive night after 10 pm. Maybe I don’t know my identity either because, by saying yes, I must really think I’m 20 years younger than I am.

Nevertheless, before the bartender even finished pouring my pint, the Flyers were down 1-0.

The Kings scored in 12 seconds to start the game. It was the fastest goal in their franchise history since Wayne Gretzky in 1992:

Hard to blame specific skaters here. Kevin Hayes was a little late on the initial wrap around, and Justin Braun was physically knocking Philip Danault off the puck. You could argue that Ivan Provorov needs to read Viktor Arvidsson’s move for the wrap around quicker, but the reality is, this is one of those plays where a team needs their goalie to make a save, and Martin Jones didn’t.

That made it 1-0.

The Flyers were able to tie it on the 10th goal of the season by Joel Farabee. He was put on a line centered by Claude Giroux along with Cam Atkinson. The trio were pretty solid offensively for the Flyers against the Kings, generating a number of chances. Giroux had two more assists and now leads the team with 29 points:

But then the Flyers made a boo-boo and it cost them. While I was willing to give Provorov a pass on the first goal, I’m not here. It’s these kinds of plays that have been absolutely killing the Flyers this season.

This is not how a No. 1 defenseman plays. What you don’t see is just before this sequence, Provorov throws a weak, blind, backhand pass. Clear? Duck fart? Up the wall that Arvidsson gathers and gets to Danault. Provorov is then late on the coverage of Danault and lets him beat him around the net to get a shot off. Provorov is then late to the rebound (as is Braun) as Trevor Moore bangs the rebound home to make it 2-1:

A couple things to note here:

  • This line for the Kings is their checking line. They were rolling this line out to try and stop the Giroux line. They aren’t known for their offense, and yet, in this game, the trio combined for 11 points. That can’t happen.
  • Oh, and coming into the game, the Kings had scored all of 16 first period goals in their first 32 games, or 0.5 per game. They quadrupled that against the Flyers. That also, can’t happen.

And yet it did, and this is why the Flyers were chasing the game.

It manifested itself further when Travis Konecny and Rasmus Ristolainen each took penalties of aggression late in the first period, giving the KIngs a two-man advantage to start the second period.

Not quite as fast as they were in the first period, the Kings scored again in the opening minute of the second period, taking advantage of the 5-on-3 to get a goal from Adrian Kempe.

The Flyers actually played some good hockey after that and were buzzing for a bit. Los Angeles goalie Jonathan Quick was keeping the puck out of the net, but the Flyers had some real jump and energy and you could sense a goal was coming that would have them right back in the game when this inexplicably happened:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1477505994661978115

I don’t even know where to begin. I guess it has to start with Kevin Connaughton. I mean, I’m not sure what he’s doing on the roster. You’ll see another brutal play by him on the next L.A. goal too, but it’s bad enough that he’s caught flat-footed in the neutral zone, but once he recovers he does nothing to knock Brendan Lemieux off the puck. Finally, he takes a penalty (which was delayed, and wiped out by the goal), but if you are going to take a penalty there as a last ditch effort, you have to prevent the shot. He didn’t.

Now, could Connaughton have been bailed out by Jones? Uh, yeah. But, again, the goalie takes a bad angle and then completely whiffs on the kick save as the puck gently bumps off the post and then sashays across the goal line.

Just a terrible goal for the Flyers and really the back breaker.

However, the goal that everyone in Philly is talking about is the next Flyers goal, which came early in the third period, with the Flyers getting a two-man advantage of their own:

Really just looks like a nice play on a beauty of a pass from Giroux to Kevin Hayes for the one-timer that cuts it to 4-2.

However, Flyers coach Mike Yeo pulled the goalie here, and had Hayes dart on from the bench as an extra attacker after the Flyers won the faceoff. This with more than 17 minutes to play in the third period.

It’s a risky play, sure, because you never want to leave your net unguarded, but, the odds of losing possession when you have twice as many skaters on the ice as the other team, plus their need to get it out of the zone will result in more of hard or high clears and not really shots at the opposing goal, makes the reward greater than the risk.

It was a savvy call by Yeo, and one that more teams should turn to in desperate situations like this.

But, it’s also an indicator that Yeo wasn’t confident enough in his group to get the tally at 5-on-3 that he felt the need to pull this out of his bag of tricks just to get a goal.

But, why be negative? It was a smart play.

And it gave the Flyers momentum back too. They started buzzing again, until Connaughton struck again:

O.K., it’s a 2-on-1, which isn’t ideal for a defenseman. But Connaughton has to make a choice here. He has to either:

  • Challenge the puck carrier and leave the pass to the goalie.
  • Let the goalie take the puck carrier, and take away the open forward.
  • Try to lay out between the two and take away the passing lane and force the puck carrier to make a split second decision, that could cost him the time and space he needs.

Connaughton does none of the three. He just kind of exists on the ice. Maybe he thought Hayes was getting back to cover Danault? I don’t know. But his indecision made the play impossible for Jones to defend in net because he can’t cheat on either the shot or the pass and is left guessing like a soccer goalie on a penalty kick.

The Flyers have a major problem with their third defensive pair. We talked about Keith Yandle the other day, but he’s not as big an issue as the combination of Connaughton and Nick Seeler have been. Neither of these guys should be playing with any regularity. Neither is a top six defenseman at this level. Hell, they might not even be a No. 7 at this level. Emergency fill in for a couple games? Yeah, O.K. But playing this long while Ellis has been out? Oof.

It’s also an indicator that neither Cam York nor Egor Zamula, the two defensive prospects closest to NHL ready, are not.

As such, Chuck Fletcher is dumpster diving for bottom pair defensemen like Matt Klentak used to go after relief pitchers for the Phillies. It’s a joke, really, and the fact that the third pair has been such a disaster has cost the Flyers games.

So, when you hear them say they are a better hockey team than they’ve been playing, it’s partly right, because if they had any semblance of a passable third pair, they might have a few more wins.

But it’s also partly wrong, because they are what they are based on how Fletcher assembled this team, and it’s not good enough.

That goal made it 5-2 and all but ended the game.

Provorov added a goal for the Flyers to cut it to 5-3 before Arvidsson added an empty-netter for the final tally.

The Flyers will have a couple days rest in the Southern California sun before they finish the road trip against the Ducks on Tuesday. Maybe they can solve their defensive woes somehow, someway before then.

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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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