Philadelphia Flyers put on a Putrid Performance in Loss vs Montreal

The Philadelphia Flyers hit the road to face the Montreal Canadiens in their second of three matchups this season.

Falling to the Tampa Bay Lighting in their last game on Tuesday, the Philadelphia Flyers took on the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre hoping to avoid their second straight loss.

Carter Hart received the start, opposing Carey Price between the pipes. Price had been up to his old tricks, coming in with a 2.56 Goals-Against Average and a .916 save percentage. The Flyers needed to put on a better two-way effort in order to defeat the Habs for the second time in a row.

And, well, they didn’t exactly do that to start the game, allowing Brendan Gallagher to score just 58 seconds in to put the Flyers in a very early 1-0 hole. The Philadelphia forecheck was very poor on the play as Montreal blew through the neutral zone to set up the goal. Jesperi Kotkaniemi added to the lead soon after, giving the Canadiens a two tally advantage less than four minutes in. Again, the Flyers defense went full Flyers defense and the rest was history.

Gallagher went on to score from an extremely sharp angle, giving the Habs a three goal lead halfway through the opening stanza. This marked the second straight game that Philadelphia’s let the opposition score three-plus goals in the first period alone, which isn’t great! Hart was pulled and in came Brian Elliott in a bit more deja vu from the matchup with Tampa. Neither team was able to find the back of the net through the rest of the first, putting an end to an awful period from the Orange and Black.

The Flyers received a power-play to begin the second, but couldn’t beat Price to convert on the opportunity. The failed man advantage came back to bite Philadelphia, because of course, as Gallagher earned himself a hat-trick to put his team up 4-0. That wasn’t all, either, with Tomas Tatar nabbing his 20th goal of the season to eventually give the Habs a 5-0 lead after 40 minutes of play.

I’ll save you the grief of having to read about the rest of this game given how embarrassing of a showing this was from the Flyers. Losing 5-1, they were dominated in nearly every single aspect on the ice, in a critical matchup for any shot at a playoff berth no less, and couldn’t rise to the occasion for the second time in the month of February.

Philippe Myers didn’t look bad in his second career NHL game, replacing a suspended Radko Gudas. He did a good job creating chances while preventing them in his own zone as well. The defensive pairing of he and Shayne Gostisbehere looked promising together, which is some sort of small positive to take away from this flat out bad showing from Philadelphia.

The Flyers are now 28-26-7 on the year. Next game is the Stadium Series clash with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.