Flyers Blowout in Season Opener, 7-0 to Penguins

The Flyers were outclassed and manhandled in Game 1 of the regular season, and the Pittsburgh Penguins looked to be in mid-season form against the Flyers, who struggled in all aspects of the game. This was the largest loss in a home opener in Flyers history, taking an ugly 7-0 loss in Game 1 of the franchise’s 60th season.

The Penguins landed the opening blow in the building where their season ended last year right after a big hit on Sidney Crosby by Rasmus Ristolainen; he found an outlet to Kris Letang, who found a trailing Nick Robertson, redirecting a shot past Daniel Vladar for the first goal. The Pens scored the second goal on a terrible shift change, when Ville Koivunen broke free on a free skate at Vladar and buried it for the second goal of the first period, making the game 2-0.

In the second period, the Penguins scored on an Evgeni Malkin slap shot, making the score 3-0. Hendrix Lapierre scored on a snap shot past Vladar after a bad transition by the Flyers for the fourth goal of the night for the Penguins. The Pens got their fifth goal on a wrist shot by Filip Hallander off of a rebound on an entry shot by Kaedan Korczak, making the game 5-0.

In the third, the Penguins added a short-handed goal when Robertson beat Travis Konecny and put a shot off the back of Vladar, and put it in the sixth goal of the game for the Penguins. Goal No. 7 came via Egor Chinakhov with three minutes remaining

Penguins Press the Flyers

Though there are many areas of criticism for the Flyers in this game, the way the Penguins held the Flyers in their zone in this game was embarrassing. One of the things that the Flyers worked hard on during training camp was clearing the puck and keeping the and trying to minimize the time their opponent spent in their zone. It appears that the Penguins were watching this and tailored their forecheck to pressure the Flyers and keep varying all looks on the entries, and then play keep-away after that.

On the fifth goal of the game, the Penguins held the zone and kept firing shots at Vladar, and though he let two rebounds go, which he controlled more often than not last season, the fact that they couldn’t clear the puck just made that worse. This is an area that needs to be addressed right away, because the Flyers looked like they were caught completely off guard by the pressure that the Pittsburgh forecheck was going to bring.

Non-Effort to Protect Vladar in Game 1

It will be easy to look at the score and blame the goalie in this one, but that is not the case here. Vladar was left out to dry many times in this game. Not only did the Penguins apply pressure numerous times, but in transition the Flyers got beaten regularly in this game.

With a young team like the Flyers, they need to play much better defense in front of their tender. This wasn’t helped by the Flyers getting outworked on the boards by the Penguins, which isn’t something that happened much in the preseason. One of the hallmarks of the team was that they won scrums on the boards early on, but in this game they let the older Penguins dictate the pace on the boards, and that led to the Pens holding the zone.

Shots Few and Far Between

This is something that the Flyers struggled with for large portions of last season. Pittsburgh outshot the Flyers 38-19. This is a hard pill to swallow because the offense looked solid going into the season opener. The biggest difference was that the Flyers looked tight, and the passes weren’t as crisp as the Pens’, allowing them to have better setup opportunities and giving them the transition opportunities that they got.

The Flyers couldn’t get anything materialized all night. It seemed like every time the Flyers got a shot on Arturs
Silovs, there was traffic in front of the net. The excuse of the short preseason isn’t valid here, because Pittsburgh had the same number of games. The pressure is on head coach Rick Tocchet and the coaching staff to find the answer to freeing up the lanes for their talented forwards to get more than 19 shots on goal in Game 2.

This was the first Penguins shutout in Philly since 2000, punctuating a very bad night at the office for the Flyers. They will need to quickly turn the page because Game 2 will be Thursday night in New Jersey.

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