The Philadelphia Flyers finished out a three-game road trip by taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins at the PPG Paints Arena.
Entering the game hoping to avoid a two-game losing streak, the Philadelphia Flyers faced off against a bitter, in-state rival in the Pittsburgh Penguins in their first meeting of the 2019-20 campaign. The Flyers were fresh off of a disappointing loss to the New York Islanders and needed their defense to have a bounce-back performance as they took on a talented Penguins offense that saw forward Alex Galchenyuk return to the lineup after suffering a lower-body injury earlier in the month. Brian Elliott got the nod from Head Coach Alain Vigneault and opposed Matt Murray in-net.
The Penguins were generating a bulk of the chances early on to start the game, and it paid off for them in spades. Justin Schultz, Jared McCann, and Dominik Simon each scored a goal within about three minutes of each other to give Pittsburgh a 3-0 lead less than halfway through the first. The Flyers blue-line once again left their goaltender out to dry on the latter two scoring plays, doing a whole lot of puck-watching instead of trying to make a play themselves. Sidney Crosby would tack on another goal for the Penguins before the period’s end, providing his team with a 4-0 lead after 20 minutes of play in what was an utterly embarrassing frame of hockey for the Orange and Black.
Pittsburgh continued to add to their lead in the second, as Jake Guentzel and Zach Aston-Reese pushed their lead to six following two periods of action. To be somewhat fair, the Flyers weren’t as bad in this period and actually carried play through a good part of the frame, but reverted to their first-period ways towards the end of it all. As for the third stanza, well…lol. They lost 7-1. Let’s just keep it at that.
The Flyers have now put up two lousy performances in back-to-back fashion, which can’t happen under any circumstance. You’d expect the team to show more life after getting dominated in nearly every aspect against the Islanders but, obviously, did the exact opposite this evening. The players as a whole have to get it together defensively because they’re bleeding dangerous chance after dangerous chance and look nothing like the squad we saw just over a week ago and to start the season. If there were any positives, and trust me, there wasn’t a whole lot to pick from, it was the penalty kill still performing well and Oskar Lindblom helping the Flyers avoid a shutout.
Philadelphia’s now 5-5-1 on the year. Next game is Friday against the New Jersey Devils.