The Flyers lost to the Capitals 4-1 in last night’s contest. Philadelphia now enters a five-game losing streak despite constantly tweaking the lines to build momentum.
Flyers vs Capitals recap
Sam Ersson got the start in the net, and Charlie Lindgren was between the pipes for Washington, but it didn’t take long for the pucks to start pouring on net. Early in the first frame, Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin got sent to the penalty box for two minutes for interference. With the Flyers having an early power play opportunity, momentum quickly shifted to the Capitals as Nic Dowd scored short-handed. After the short-handed goal, Nick Deslauriers wasted no time trying to draw momentum by fighting Dylan McIlrath.
While this was a classic hockey fight, and the fans inside the Wells Fargo Center were rowdy, it didn’t take long for the Flyers to lose momentum again. Pierre-Luc Dubois got sent to the sin bin for slashing. With the Flyers on the power play, Andrew Mangiapane scored short-handed for Washington again.
The positioning of defenseman Egor Zamula on Mangiapane’s goal was brutal, as Zamula didn’t have his stick down. When playing even strength, Zamula does look fine, but on PP2, he seems out of place.
The Flyers’ frustration began to show even more in the second frame. Travis Sanheim was too close to Lindgren in the net, which led Chychrun to slam into the Flyers’ defenseman. Nothing was called on the ice despite the elbow to his head and into the boards. Sanheim was yelling at the Capitals’ bench after the play was settled.
The Flyers’ penalty kill was active and looked strong once more. Matvei Michkov had a great pass to Jamie Drysdale, but Drysdale missed the net. Other than that, the Flyers passed the puck too many times before attempting to shoot, which led to turnovers throughout the contest. After five periods of play on home ice, the Flyers have yet to score, which grew to a bigger question: what is the goal horn song?
Luckily, the goal horn song question was put to rest when Travis Sanheim got Philadelphia on the board. The Flyers are using the same song as last season”: “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love,” a song by Van Halen. The Flyers cut the deficit in half, which was short-lived as Dylan Strome was able to give Washington a two-goal lead again. Zamula was on the ice for Strome’s goal, and his positioning was an issue again. However, Tortorella didn’t bench the young defender, and he stayed on the second power-play unit.
Chychrun got the puck behind Ersson for Washington’s fourth time, and the Capitals succeeded in a win as the Flyers continued to look for their first win since the season opener.
After the game, Sanheim said, “We (Flyers) had chances, and it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t break through.” While the Flyers couldn’t follow through and get on the board more, Sanheim was at least aware that the opportunities were there. Captain Sean Couturier reiterated the same message, saying that there were opportunities. The clear message in the locker room was that it was unfortunate, but the two short-handed goals.
John Tortorella highlighted why Tyson Foerster was a healthy scratch, stating
“Tyson just wasn’t playing well.” The simple reasoning for Foerster could also apply to Owen Tippett; however, with Tippett playing on the same line as Michkov, it’s not a surprise that Tippett has yet to be scratched”
The bench boss touched on the loss, “they want to play well. They want to win a hockey game. They want to score a goal. You can’t let the frustration turn into cheating. You can’t forget about your structure.”
In most games, Torts has seen good minutes on the ice from the team. However, he stated it’s still early in the season and doesn’t seem concerned about this style of play continuing. At the end of last season, Philadelphia kept losing games due to the lack of scoring, and while Tortorella doesn’t see a correlation between the end of last season and this season, he states the team can’t play frustrated. He is also looking towards the game Wednesday night in Washington against the Capitlals in this back-to-back.
