After four days off, the Flyers welcomed the Anaheim Ducks to town with a 3-2 loss. There were some changes on the ice for the orange and black, including the swap of Nikolay Zherdev on the top line with Jeff Carter and Mike Richards for Andreas Nodl, who bounced down to the third line with Claude Giroux and James Van Riemsdyk. Sergei Bobrovsky was given his fourth start of the season. With all the time off, how did the Flyers come out of the gate?
Awful.
Thirty five seconds in, Ducks defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky cruised into the Flyers zone and wristed a missile past Bobrovsky’s blocker side.
I don’t know what it is about the Flyers that causes them to start periods without any energy, but it once again shot them in the foot. The Flyers put the pressure on immediately after and eventually began to dominate the puck possession. At 4:16, a shot from defenseman Andrej Meszaros was muscled in by Scott Hartnell and Ville Leino to tie the game. The goal was initially waived off by a linesman, but video replay clearly showed the puck over the goal line.
The remainder of the first period looked decent for the Flyers, who controlled the puck in the offensive zone for minutes at a time. The sole Flyer penalty was on Hartnell for goaltender interference, but Ducks goaltender Curtis McElhinney embellished a bit as he flailed on the crease for about twenty seconds.
The Ducks took the lead again at 10:32 with a snapper from Jason Blake as a result of poor defensive coverage in front of the net. If I had any complaints, there was a lot of individual skill on display in the first period but not much team chemistry. Passes were thrown blindly across the ice.
The Flyers bounced back in the second period with tremendous improvement in the team’s all-around play. The team was handling the puck well, took steady shots on goal, maintained net presence with several opportunities for garbage goals, and limited the penalties to one. Giroux caught a long pass at 13:50 from defenseman Matt Carle that he was able to shoot on net. He followed through with a backhand on the rebound to score the equalizer.
The third period started slow again as the Flyers iced the puck twice in the first minute. Penalties on Carter and Hartnell slowed the momentum that the Flyers were building in the second. It looked like the game would be going to overtime before Ryan Getzlaf crashed the crease and slipped the puck through Bobrovsky’s five-hole. The goal was reviewed as it wasn’t clear if the puck crossed the goal line, but the call on the ice stood.
The Briere-Hartnell-Leino line has continued to be the best forward combination for the Flyers. Zherdev was also a noticeable improvement on the top line for Richards and Carter. I wouldn’t expect to see Nodl or Carcillo make their way back to that line any time soon. As for Nodl, I was disappointed with his game. He was given more ice time to show what he was capable of, and he spent much of it skating around waiting for the puck to come to him. He wasn’t a liability, but he looked like he was waiting for plays to happen.
At this point, I would consider moving Nodl to the fourth line and letting Powe skate with JVR and Giroux. Powe has better speed and grit that could be worth a shot given what the team has to work with.
Bobrovsky has been steadily improving with each game. Both goals were preventable with better defensive coverage, and Bob wowed the crowd all night with save after save, including a one-on-one with Todd Marchant in the second period. Marchant was able to skate into the Flyers zone with ease as a result of a poorly timed lie change, and Bob blocked the initial shot and the rebound.
Bob was highly critical of himself after the game considering how well he played. When asked about his performance, he said (or the interpreter said) “The team lost… it was my fault. The team must always win.” His mental fortitude and dedication to his game is promising. With every game that goaltender Michael Leighton misses, it’s going to be more and more difficult to send Bob back to Adirondack.
The Flyers take on the “truculent” Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Complex.
