Flyers’ Blueprint for Game 3: Physicality, Cleaner Passing, and a Home Crowd

The Flyers may have left Raleigh down 0-2, but Game 2 told a vastly different story than Game 1. Game 1 was an ugly 3-0 loss where the Flyers managed just nine shots in the first two periods and looked like they were woefully unprepared for a forecheck like Carolina’s. Game 2 was a 3-2 overtime loss where they outshot Carolina 15-8 in overtime, held two leads, and still lost when Taylor Hall won a goal-mouth scramble with Daniel Vladar making 40 saves on the night. Vladar deserved better than what he got.

“I still think there is another level to our game that we can get to,” Travis Konecny said after Game 2. “It was a lot better tonight. It should have went our way [Monday].”

The hole the Flyers are sitting in is real, and the numbers say it plainly: teams that go up 2-0 in a best-of-seven win 86 percent of the time, but the bigger problem right now isn’t the record, it’s the pattern. Two games in, the Flyers haven’t figured out how to counter the Carolina forecheck, and until they do, Game 3 could look a lot like the first two.

In the first two periods of Game 1, Carolina held a 41-21 edge in shot attempts and a 20-9 lead in shots on goal. It was obvious by the second period how much it affected the team. The Flyers would chip one out, Carolina would retrieve it, and the Flyers would be back to defending before they could get set. Game 2 was better, but the Flyers still spent most of three periods below their own hashmarks because the Canes don’t want one chance off a turnover. They want extended possessions, retrievals that become second and third touches, and they just pressure you until the defense cracks and something opens up. The Flyers have been feeding into that machine for six periods.

Two things can throw a monkey wrench in that machine, and the first is physicality, especially in the neutral zone. In Games 1 through 3 against Pittsburgh, games the Flyers won by a combined 11-4, they averaged 44 hits to the Penguins’ 33, and that 11-hit edge was the identity of those wins because the Flyers were setting the physical terms. In Games 4 and 5, that physical edge dropped significantly, Pittsburgh started dictating the pace, and suddenly the Flyers needed six games to close it out. Carolina isn’t going to ease up because the Flyers compete harder; the Flyers make them pay through the neutral zone before the forecheck even gets to set up. If they don’t, the Canes will continue to bully the Flyers with pressure and keep them in a defensive posture even in the neutral zone.

The second thing that can frustrate them is cleaner puck movement, particularly when getting the puck out of the zone, because Carolina’s forecheck thrives on pressure and hesitation. If a defenseman arrives at a loose puck and then decides what to do with it, they’ve just given the Canes the moment they need to reset and storm your zone. The passing in the offensive zone improved drastically in Game 2, but early on, the passes were not tape-to-tape, and that slight moment of hesitation never let anything materialize for the Flyers until the third period of Game 2.

“They’re on top of you and super aggressive,” Cam York said after Game 1, “but if you can use the middle of the ice, you can use that against them pretty well and get a bunch of odd-man looks.”

READ MORE FROM GAME 2:

Despite the Loss, the Flyers Showed Way More Life in Game 2: ‘We’ve Been Dead Before, and We’ve Climbed Out of the Grave’

The Flyers can make those reads, they just haven’t made them fast enough yet.

Rick Tocchet said after Game 1 that the Flyers weren’t mentally prepared, and while Game 2 was clearly a step forward, going home shifts the environment, and while it’s a great thing, it won’t change the Carolina forecheck. Xfinity Mobile Arena will be loud and hostile to a team that has won six straight playoff games, and that energy is real, but the building can only do so much. The Flyers have to bring a flawless game on Thursday that they know they’re capable of playing.

The Flyers showed in Game 2 that they can compete with this team for 60-plus minutes on the road, even if it did end in a weird way, but if the Flyers want to get those bounces and greasy goals to go their way, they need to be the bullies and pass the puck much cleaner. Game 3 isn’t about surviving Carolina’s forecheck anymore. It’s about imposing their will and dismantling that forecheck one hit and counter at a time.

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