Three Standout Players In Philadelphia Flyers Loss To Islanders

These three players stood out the most in the Philadelphia Flyers loss to the New York Islanders.

Entering the game looking to earn their fourth straight win, the Philadelphia Flyers kicked off a three-game road trip by taking on the New York Islanders at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The Flyers weren’t the only team hoping to extend a winning streak, either, as the Isles won their last six contests coming in. Carter Hart got the nod and opposed Semyon Varlamov. Hart hoped to get back on track following two rough outings and obtain his third win on the season.

The first period was rather eventful, as both teams combined for five goals in the frame. Sadly, the Flyers were on the lower end of that spectrum. Jakub Voracek scored the game’s first goal just minutes into the stanza, but the Isles stormed back by getting three straight pucks by Hart. Travis Konecny got Philadelphia back within one with a beautiful deflection, though, giving the team a sense of optimism heading into the second.

Ryan Pulock and Mat Barzal killed that optimism to begin the second, as the two scored goals within a minute and 25 seconds of each other to put the Islanders up 5-2. Those two goals also got Alain Vigneault to pull Hart out of the crease in favor of Brian Elliott, as the young netminder made a mere nine saves on 14 shots and was an absolute mess in-net from a positional standpoint. The Flyers defense didn’t do him a whole lot of favors, as well. Thankfully, that was all New York scored in the period, holding a three-goal lead entering the final period of regulation.

Elliott did everything in his power to keep Philadelphia in the game and Claude Giroux scored to put his team within two but it wasn’t enough as they eventually fell to their Metropolitan rival by a score of 5-3. There weren’t a whole lot of positives to take away from this matchup, but a couple of forwards performed well, so let’s take a look at some of them, shall we?

Konecny once again found his way onto my “Three Standout Players” lists. The 22-year-old forward has been playing some excellent hockey recently and continued to do so in this game. As I mentioned above, TK scored the Flyers’ second tally in the first period, installing some life back into the team after they surrendered three straight goals, though that life was short-lived, for lack of a better term. This extended his point streak to five, which is only one game behind his career-long of six, which he posted during the 2017-18 campaign. The kid’s been red hot for the Orange and Black in the early goings of 2019-20 and was one of the few bright spots in this game.

The other two were none other than Kevin Hayes and Joel Farabee. The duo, along with Tyler Pitlick was arguably the Flyers’ strongest line throughout the night, consistently applying pressure in New York’s zone. This was especially evident during the middle frame, where the third combination had the Islanders on their heels whenever they took a shift. Sadly, their efforts went to waste, but it’s still worth noting nonetheless. I also want to clarify that Farabee and especially Hayes completely carried the line, while Pitlick was just sort of there and made a couple of mistakes in both ends, too.

The Flyers are now 5-4-1 on the season. Next game is Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.