Flyers lose 6th straight in defeat to Bruins
Photo by Philadelphia Flyers
The Flyers, who have already suffered a 10-game losing streak, have now dropped six in a row with a loss in Boston to the Bruins Thursday night.
Period 1
In his return to his home town since losing his brother Jimmy back before the season, Kevin Hayes won the opening faceoff to begin the night.
Boston struck first at 1:51. Horrible sequence for the Flyers in their own zone. Jackson Cates couldn’t clear the puck at the blue line, Scott Laughton recovered the puck but his pass doesn’t land on the tape of Travis Sanheim. Bruins gained possession and Pastrnak intercepted Laughton’s bad pass, found an open slot, and wired it past Flyers goaltender Carter Hart to make it a 1-0 game early. Pretty pathetic hockey.
The Bruins went to the game’s first power play as Nick Seeler went to the penalty box at 4:04 for holding. The Flyers were off to a horrible start already, but a possible penalty kill situation didn’t help. A really nice pass by Brad Marchand to hit Pastrnak as he’s staring at an open net, but that pass really should not be able to get through. Pastrnak made an unstoppable shot at Hart, and it was 2-0 Bruins at 5:27.
Just 21 seconds later, the Flyers headed back on the penalty kill. Ivan Provorov went to the sin bin for a minor high sticking penalty. But the Flyers get lucky and got the kill. If they didn’t, the game was being turned off.
Another way to explain how bad this start was: the Flyers got their first shot on goal 9:19 into the period. Laughable.
A little tussle broke out right in front of the penalty box at 15:28. Laughton laid a nice hit, Pastrnak got mad about it, and a bunch of dudes shoved each other, and out of all of it the Flyers got a power play. Penalties to Pastrnak for interference and matching roughing minors to Zack MacEwen and Tyler Lewington. And not a single shot on goal was registered during the power play. Whole lot of nothing.
The first period came to an end with a score of 2-0 in favor of Boston. Just a depressing period from the Flyers. They looked completely outclassed by the Bruins.
Period 2
Claude Giroux won the opening faceoff to kick off the second period.
Zack MacEwen and Tyler Lewington dropped the gloves at 2:51, and MacEwen beat the crap out of him. Kinda surprised that Lewington was willing to drop the gloves with MacEwen given the situation, but worth a shot for him I guess. Team is clearly flat tonight. The broadcast said that they weren’t exactly sure what started the fight.” Well, maybe it was the coincidental roughings in the first period and the 2-0 score. Just a guess.
Interference penalty on Tomas Nosek send the Flyers on their second power play of the night at 6:26. Provorov put a healthy shot on net from the point, and Cam Atkinson was right there and tipped it in to make this a 2-1 lead, while on the power play. Atkinson’s 15th goal on the season. He’s on pace for 34.
As MacEwen entered back into the game, he starting getting into it again like a feisty little yappy dog. He went back to the box along with Pastrnak for roughing. Two minutes of 4-on-4 hockey ensued. A chance opened up for the Flyers and Joel Farabee in those 120 seconds. Farabee had a wide open breakaway. I mean there was no one close to him. He tried to go five-hole on returning Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask, but he shut it down calmly. Other than that, not much happened for either side.
At 15:00, the Flyers got the equalizer. Atkinson gave a feed across the net to Farabee, and he buried it home in an open net to tie this one at two.
At 15: Justin Braun went to the box for tripping. A few seconds later, it turned into a 5-on-3 advantage for Boston with a Max Willman hooking penalty. In the 48 seconds of that 5-on-3, Pasternak took a slap shot from far out to secure the hat trick as he gave the Bruins a 3-2 lead. Pastrnak has three hat tricks against the Flyers over the last two seasons. Boston also couldn’t have gotten that goal from a better player. It comes just 16 seconds into the 5-on-3, and now with the cleanup of the hats, Boston’s top unit gets a rest. Also, how about this: the Flyers have given up three hat tricks in their past four games. Horrible.
Atkinson hopped on a short-handed breakaway as he picked it up off a breakaway at 17:10. And, as it’s been going all night, Rask made the stop. TD Garden went crazy.
If anyone was even keeping track anymore, the Flyers killed the Willman penalty.
Better energy and effort from the Flyers in the second period, but a pair of penalties gave Boston a two-man advantage where Pastrnak struck again. 3-2 Boston through 40. Shots were 29-15 Boston with 20 minutes remaining.
Period 3
Tomas Nosek won the opening draw, and the final 20 were underway.
Hart basically kept this game alive for the Flyers at 2:54. He stopped a shot on a wrap around, then another from a shot right in front that he had to dive out for to try and cover it up, but failed, then another one from Marchan who got a feed to Hart’s left, which he had to sprawl out for. Finally, he covered them up. Great saves there from Hart.
Hart is keeping this a one-goal game. Six saves in the period at that point, many of them challenging ones, and the score remained 3-2 Boston with 13:51 left. Great stuff from the 23 year old.
The Flyers may or might’ve lost this game (when I’m typing this it was still a one goal game) but the real loser was the ESPN broadcast, especially in the third period. Lost commentary sound for an entire shift, had a split-screen commercial going during gameplay, and then just flashed a graphic saying that Martin Jones had 29 saves when he’s not playing. Then they had this weird camera angle they used a lot throughout the night from the nose bleeds in the corner. Looked like the view from the press box. Horrible view, and they kept going to it. Not a great broadcast from ESPN in the fist the Flyers are playing on the network since 2004.
Brandon Carlo forced a delay of game penalty at 12:05. Huge opportunity for the Flyers to knot this game up at three as they had the momentum shifting their way. Thankfully for the Flyers, another delay of game penalty was called on Charlie Coyle. 5-on-3 hockey for 51 seconds. Now this, this was huge. No excuse here but to score. Flyers kind of threw with the two-man advantage. There were standing yonder away from the net, when there was only three guys wearing yellow and black on the ice. Moving slow, as well. Of course, they did not score on the 5-on-3 and/pr the 5-on-4. Bruins went back to full strength with five minutes left to go.
Flyers pulled the goalie for an extra attacker with 3:48 left to go, hoping for something, anything. They got a few good chances off, but couldn’t get the job done. Guess they at least made it interesting, but the Bruins were the better team tonight.
