Flyers Play Down To Competition, Lose To Ottawa 2-1

The Philadelphia Flyers kicked off the first half of a back-to-back by taking on the Ottawa Senators on the road.

Looking to get back into the win column following a 2-1 shootout loss to the Washington Capitals on Wednesday, the Philadelphia Flyers hit the road to face the Ottawa Senators in their first of three meetings in 2019-20. The Flyers took the season-series from the Sens last year, winning two of the possible three contests, and hoped to do more of the same this time around. Carter Hart received the start and opposed Anders Nilsson in-net. Hart entered the game on quite the tear, posting a 1.72 Goals Against Average with a .939 save percentage during November. Philly needed him to stay sharp against Ottawa as the team came into the game scoring ten goals in their last three games combined.

The Flyers put tons of pressure on the Senators to begin the game, generating three dangerous scoring chances within about two minutes of the puck dropping. All of that eventually led to Tyler Pitlick scoring his first goal of the season, sniping a shot from the circle passed Nilsson to give the Orange and Black a 1-0 advantage. Andy Andreoff did a tremendous job at keeping the puck in the zone to ignite the chance and earned his first point as a Flyer with a secondary assist on the play as a reward. Ottawa evened things out a bit from a shots and chances standpoint as the frame went along, but still trailed 1-0 after one thanks to some solid work from Hart and a key blocked shot from Pitlick.

Both sides participated in some back-and-forth hockey through a good chunk of the second, with neither finding the back of the net. That changed with about six minutes to go in the stanza as Tyler Ennis tied the game at one with a power-play goal. Erik Brannstrom was able to fight off a checking attempt from Ivan Provorov near the boards, which allowed him to hit Ennis with a pass at the right circle for the equalizer. Filip Chlapik would go on to net his second tally of the year before the period’s end, giving Ottawa a 2-1 lead heading into the third.

Philadelphia had their opportunities to tie things back up in the period, including a four-minute power-play with under five minutes to go, but failed to beat Nilsson for a second time and fell to the Sens, 2-1. This was just an all-around pathetic performance from the Flyers. They clearly played down to their competition and paid the price for it in a second straight loss. I don’t care how many chances you create, netting two goals in two games is never going to get you wins. This team has to start cashing in on offense, plain and simple, especially when you’re facing a club with less talent at its’ disposal like Ottawa.

The Flyers are now 10-6-3 on the season. Next game is Saturday against the New York Islanders.