It’s a good candidate for their most discouraging loss of the season. The Philadelphia Flyers, with a chance to move over .500 while leapfrogging the rival Pittsburgh Penguins for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, were dominated in the first period and weren’t able to recover, dropping a 7-3 decision on Monday at PPG Paints Arena.
It wouldn’t be a Flyers-Penguins game, either, without Sidney Crosby doing something notable. He had assists on three of the Penguins’ four first-period goals, moving into a tie with Mario Lemieux for the most helpers in Penguins franchise history with 1,033. You’d be forgiven for estimating that about half of those have come in games against Philadelphia. He added the exclamation point with an empty-net goal with 2:30 left to seal the win for the Penguins.
“(Crosby) was feeling it tonight. We didn’t seem to manage him well and he made us pay,” captain Sean Couturier, who’s seen this movie plenty of times in his 13 years with the Flyers, said after the game.
If the Flyers hope to make the playoffs, they’re probably going to have to finish ahead of the Penguins, who have been impressive lately after a difficult start and are now three points ahead of Philadelphia, though the Flyers have a game in hand. There are three more head-to-head meetings this season, all in February.
The Flyers limp into the Christmas break losers of four of their last five (1-4-0), with their lone win coming over Columbus on Saturday. There are many issues to be addressed when they resume on Dec. 28 in Anaheim.
It starts, unsurprisingly, with…
The goaltending
Sam Ersson and Aleksei Kolosov combined to allow six goals to the Penguins on just 21 shots on Monday. It moves the Flyers into dead last in the league in save percentage, both overall (.866) and at five-on-five (.882).
Updated Flyers goalie save percentages this season
Ersson: .872
Kolosov: .878
Fedotov: .877— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) December 24, 2024
Ersson just hasn’t looked himself since returning from a groin injury. Although the defense in front of him on Monday wasn’t doing him any favors, he still looked shaky in allowing four goals in the first period, two of which were power-play markers. The puck he absolutely needed to stop, though, was Michael Bunting’s slapper from the circle late in the second period. The Flyers were badly outplaying the Penguins through much of the period and scored a pair to make it a 4-3 game before Bunting restored a two-goal cushion before the intermission. It was a difficult save, sure, but in that situation it has to be made.
It will be interesting to see if the Flyers end up taking all three of their goalies, including Ivan Fedotov, on the upcoming California swing. With Ersson struggling and Kolosov not looking any better, maybe they turn back to the towering Fedotov for a start or two. It can’t get any worse at this point.
Special teams
The Flyers didn’t get any power plays against the Penguins on Monday, at least a partial reflection of not having the puck enough. But drawing penalties has been an issue for a little while now — since Nov. 27, the Flyers have had just 37 power play opportunities, tied for fourth-fewest in the league.
But the power play itself hasn’t done much with the advantages it’s had, as Monday was the Flyers’ sixth straight game without a goal. They’re 27th in the NHL with a 15.6 percent success rate.
Coach John Tortorella before Monday’s game pointed to the quarterbacks — lately Jamie Drysdale and Egor Zamula — and a struggling Matvei Michkov as the primary reasons the power play hasn’t been getting it done lately. But really, this has been a team-wide issue for too long now. Teams with worse talent on their roster than Philadelphia have still found ways to produce more regularly on the power play.
This is assistant coach Rocky Thompson’s third year in charge of that part of the Flyers’ game. If they can’t figure it out, and soon, it will be time to give someone else a shot at fixing it, if it’s not at that point already.
Of equal concern, though, is the faltering penalty kill, which was a strength of the team last season and the early part of this one. Since Nov. 14, the Flyers’ 63.8 penalty killing percentage is dead last in the league. That includes goals by Bunting and Philip Tomasino in the first period on Monday, as the Flyers were scrambling all around their own zone on both.
Key young players struggling
Tortorella isn’t wrong that Michkov has seemed to hit a wall of late. He looks much like he did before the coach scratched him for two games last month. Were it not for the Christmas break, we might be asking ourselves whether it was time to take Michkov out again, as he’s now gone six games without a point. Since the Flyers didn’t have any power plays on Monday, Michkov’s 11:27 of ice time was actually a season low — slightly less than the 12:19 he got against the Kings last Thursday.
There may be no player on the roster that needs the break more than Michkov, particularly as the Flyers’ schedule has been demanding for a little while now. Their last eight road games have all been quick in-and-outs, and they’ve essentially alternated home and road games for the last month. That will wear on anyone, particularly a 19-year-old still getting his feet wet — something Tortorella has suggested more than once.
But the other young player now in focus is defenseman Cam York. He had another rough outing on Monday, forced into a pair of first-period holding minors that the Penguins capitalized on while taking control of the game early. In 14 games since returning from an upper body injury, York has just one goal and three assists, but more distressingly hasn’t been as responsible in his own end as he was late last season and before his injury this season. Perhaps he’s another player that simply needs a holiday break.
(Photo of Sidney Crosby and Cam York: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
