Sloppy Play Plagues Philadelphia Flyers In 3-1 Loss To Flames

The Philadelphia Flyers hoped to avoid a two-game losing streak as they took on the Calgary Flames on the road.

Coming off a 3-2 shootout loss at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, the Philadelphia Flyers continued on their Western Canadian road trip as they traveled to Calgary to take on the Flames. Brian Elliott got his first start of the 2019-20 regular-season against his former team and opposed David Rittich in the crease. Rittich had a rough go of it in his last contest, surrendering six goals on 30 shots to the Vegas Golden Knights. The Flyers had to pick up where the Knights left off and prevent the 27-year-old goaltender from gaining any confidence.

Calgary got off to a quick start, scoring the game’s first goal just under two minutes in on a shot from Michael Frolik. Justin Braun unintentionally tripped up Elliott while battling with a Flame in front of the net, allowing Frolik to net his first goal of the season. If the early goal allowed was any indication, the Flyers were extremely sluggish at the beginning of the first. They continually iced the puck, struggled to enter the opposing zone, and were getting flat out dominated by Calgary in the initial seven minutes.

I’ll save you the trouble of having to relive the rest of the opening stanza by simply saying that the Flyers were bad. Like, really bad. There weren’t a whole lot of Flyers players that performed well in those 20 minutes, as the team looked utterly disjointed in every facet on the ice. They were lucky to be down by just one going into the second and that Calgary failed to capitalize on more of their mistakes.

The second period undoubtedly started on a better foot for the Flyers, as the team generated more pressure in the offensive zone to challenge Rittich a couple of times. Philadelphia still had issues with their passing, though, failing to make routine zone-exits, stretch passes, and create tape-to-tape plays in the Flames end. Calgary would eventually double their lead on a goal from Andrew Mangiapane and took a 2-0 lead into the final frame.

Matt Niskanen finally put the Flyers on the board in the early-goings of the third, sniping a puck from the slot to cut the Flames lead to one. Travis Konecny made a stellar pass from behind the net to set the former Washington Capital up, extending his point streak to four games. Philadelphia continued to put the heat on the Flames (pun most definitely intended) through the rest of the stanza but couldn’t get passed Rittich for a second time as they fell to Calgary 3-1 due to an empty netter from Elias Lindholm.

While they came alive in the third, this was the Flyers’ worst showing of the young season. They lacked energy, failed to connect on passes, and basically let Calgary walk their way to victory. One has to hope that this was merely due to a high amount of traveling Philadelphia has had to do to begin the campaign, and that’s it’s not a sign of things to come in the future.

The Flyers are now 2-1-1 on the year. Next game is Wednesday against the Edmonton Oilers.