Flyers-Predators recap: Bad to good to very, very bad

Losses don’t get much more painful than this, as the Philadelphia Flyers blow a 5-4 lead late in Nashville in heartbreaking fashion.

The box score will tell you that the Nashville Predators knocked off the Philadelphia Flyers in a high-scoring affair, but the specifics of the game make the loss far tougher to swallow.

Carrying a 5-4 lead into the waning minutes of the third period, two penalties by Dale Weise and Andrew MacDonald gave the Predators a 5-on-3. Filip Forsberg buried a goal, tying it up at 5 apiece. But making matters worse was Dave Hakstol’s decision to challenge the goal, arguing that a Predators forward was offsides when the team entered the zone. The play might have been offsides, but it was too close to overturn the call. The failed challenge slapped another minor penalty on the Flyers, and Forsberg scored another 5-on-3 goal to win it with 36 seconds left.

There are a lot of ways to lose a hockey game, but this might be one of the worst. Late game penalties and poor coaching decisions are a toxic combination when nursing a one-goal lead. On the bright side, it’s hard to imagine many losses this season will be more painful than this one. Here’s hoping the Flyers pick themselves up, regroup, and come out stronger when they take on the Capitals in their season opener.

A few observations:

Game observations

• It’s difficult to remember that the Flyers came back from a 3-0 deficit after that dumpster fire of a final few minutes, but I checked the box score so I’m pretty sure it happened. In fact, outside the first and last 10 minutes, the Flyers were beating the Predators in all aspects of the game. Too bad it wasn’t enough.
• Nolan Patrick scored his first career goal! Hopefully the first of many more to come.
• The fourth line finally had a poor game, losing the shot attempt battle by a wide margin. Fortunately, Patrick’s and Valtteri Filppula‘s lines made up the difference with their strongest games of the year.
• Shayne Gostisbehere somewhat surprisingly led the Flyers in ice time by far, seeing over three more minutes of game action than the second-place Ivan Provorov. This wasn’t just because the Flyers saw a lot of PP time either–Ghost led the team in 5v5 ice time as well.
• Sometimes the scoresheet lies and sometime it doesn’t. For Brian Elliott, it spoke the truth. Not a good showing from the veteran, stopping only 20 of 25 shots.

Most Fly

Jordan Weal. He looked positively dominant on the forecheck at times, displaying a relentless motor and toughness along the boards. His primary assist on Travis Konecny‘s goal was a thing of beauty, as well.

Least Fly

The whole third period, but mostly the back half, for the aforementioned reasons. The Flyers were simply caught on their heels with a one-goal lead, and were punished accordingly.

One-Sentence Takeaway

Let’s just move on to the next game, shall we?

Next: Three Flyers takeaways after three games

(Stats via Natural Stat Trick)