The Flyers announced late on Monday that defensemen Braydon Coburn and Chris Pronger would miss last night’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes. Pronger is believed to have the flu while, according to Tim Panaccio of CSNPhilly, Coburn has a bruised kidney following Saturday’s loss to the Winnipeg Jets.
Their absence from the line-up was glaring after the final buzzer sounded, solidifying the Hurricanes’ 4-2 win over the Flyers.
Defenseman Erik Gustafsson was placed on LTIR while Harry Zolniercyzk was temporarily “loaned” to the Trenton Titans in order to make room for defensemen Kevin Marshall and Marc-Andre Bourdon, each making their NHL debut.
Neither player has been particularly strong with the Phantoms this season, but they are the best defensemen left without requiring re-entry waivers. Both were used sparingly throughout the game, but Bourdon seemed to make his presence as a physical defenseman well known.
“They stepped in and did a great job, but obviously Prongs and Coby are guys that played some big minutes for us this year,” said James Van Riemsdyk. “We had to adjust and kind of rally around that. I think [Marshall and Bourdon] did a pretty good job keeping things simple and playing a hard game.”
JVR had an unreal game, willing the first goal for the Flyers by outworking a defenseman behind the net, skating back to the crease and backhanding over goaltender Cam Ward. He repeated this maneuver later in the period, passing the puck through the crease to Matt Read who tallied his 9th goal of the season.
Unfortunately, both goals were not enough to make up for flat efforts in the first period from Kimmo Timonen and Andrej Meszaros as well as the rest of the penalty killers.
The Hurricanes were ranked 29th in the NHL heading into the game while the Flyers ranked 12th in penalty killing. In spite of this, NHL journeyman Alexei Ponikarovsky scored two powerplay goals for the ‘Canes.
“They had two pretty much tap-in goals on the powerplay. It was pretty deflating,” said JVR.
The reason they were “tap-in” goals was that, even if there were three Flyers defending the crease, none of them would engage their opponent. Had Pronger or Coburn been in the line-up, arguably Ponikarovsky would have been thrown on his butt rather than be allowed to take second and third chances.
Preteen sensation Jeff Skinner further embarrassed Timonen with the second goal of the game by twirling around the veteran and then lobbing the puck over Ilya Bryzgalov.
It’s a cliche to say “the other team wanted it more,” and I don’t think that’s particularly true in this case either, but that was the theme in the locker room after the game. Timonen talked about how they came out “flat-footed” in the first period while coach Peter Laviolette stated, “I think they buried us.”
Although the Hurricanes were the more aggressive team, the Flyers weren’t necessarily “bad” as much as they took too many penalties (again) and played too soft on the penalty kill.
On Wednesday, the Flyers face the New York Islanders, another team that has been struggling lately. The Islanders have lost 12 of their last 14 games, but if the Flyers treat them as an easy two points, they are going to be steamrolled.
It’s questionable whether Pronger, Coburn or Jaromir Jagr will be available for the game, but the mistakes made against Carolina are correctable. This team has the pieces to win as long as they remember what it means to be a Bully.
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