The Flyers dropped their first regulation road game against the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight in a disappointing 2-1 loss. Almost everything that went right against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night went wrong again here.
There was a lot of intensity in the first period, but aside from two or three good puck cycling sessions, the team couldn’t seem to get past the neutral zone. When they had their opportunities, they weren’t taking enough shots, or were taking long shots with no traffic in front of the net. Even back-up goaltenders like Mathieu Garon are going to be able to make those stops.
Defensively, the team gave up too many odd man rushes. That’s a risk with the type of system that coach Peter Laviolette implements, but every aggressive offensive play needs to be offset with a timely recovery by the defense. In particular, the top defensive pairing of Chris Pronger and Matt Carle may need to be broken up. Carle has been off to a weak start this season and doesn’t appear to have a fully healed Pronger to back him up.
The first goal of tonight’s game started with Blue Jacket Chris Clark skating towards the wall and Chris Pronger missing the backcheck. Clark skated in on goal where Carle picked him up, but Clark was able to get the shot off. Boosh made the quick save, but the rebound bounced right back to Carle, Clark, and rookie Kyle Wilson who joined the rush. Carle missed Wilson coming in and the rookie notched his first career NHL goal.
One area of the game that the Flyers have to be somewhat pleased with is the reduction in penalties called against them. Danny Briere and Darroll Powe were the only offenders tonight but both were called multiple times. Powe was the recipient of two interference calls in the last five minutes of both the second and third periods, the first being a particularly weak call from the referee at the neutral zone and the second being a momentum killer less than a minute after the Flyers scored.
That said, the penalty on Briere in the second period led to the second goal by the Blue Jackets. The penalty kill missed four or five opportunities to clear the puck and a gassed PK unit eventually missed the tic-tac-toe play from Rick Nash to Derick Brassard.
On the Flyers’ first of two powerplay attempts in the game, they had only two shots on goal. Needless to say, this continues to be an area of weakness.
The sole goal for the Flyers came late in the third from the top line of Danny Briere-Scott Hartnell-Ville Leino. They were able to gain a foothold in the Blue Jacket’s zone and Hartnell and Leino parked in front of Garon. A wraparound shot by Briere was picked up by Leino for his second goal of the season. Once again, this line is producing, but they can’t be expected to carry every game themselves.
Goaltender Brian Boucher played fantastic considering the number of quality opportunities that the Blue Jackets generated. This could have very easily been a 6-1 thrashing by the Jackets, but Boosh came through on a number of turnovers and weak backchecks by his teammates. I’m still in favor of rotating between Boosh and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky for the time being, but he wasn’t at fault for tonight’s loss.
The Flyers will have to double their efforts tomorrow night as they head back home to face the Buffalo Sabres.
