Injuries, Lack Of Offense Plague Flyers In Loss vs Wild

The Philadelphia Flyers continued a three-game road trip by visiting the Xcel Energy Center to take on the Minnesota Wild.

Fresh off of a lackluster offensive showing in the 3-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in their last game, the Philadelphia Flyers hoped to avoid a two-game losing streak as they faced off with the Minnesota Wild. On the opposite side of things, the Wild were aiming to kick start a two-game winning streak after beating the Edmonton Oilers by a score of 6-5 on Thursday and further put themselves back into the Western Conference playoff picture.

Carter Hart got the nod from Alain Vigneault and opposed Alex Stalock on the opposite end of the rink. Philippe Myers also made his return to the lineup after missing Wednesday’s game due to back spasms and came in for Robert Hagg.

The Flyers started the game in the absolutely best way possible, scoring on their first shot on net to take an early 1-0 advantage. James van Riemsdyk sniped the puck past Stalock on a 2-on-1 rush after a great feed from Morgan Frost, breaking a three-game goalless drought in the process. That great start was short-lived, though, as Zach Parise responded with a goal of his own around five minutes later to knot everything up at one apiece.

Eric Staal followed it up with a tally of his own, and the Wild held a 2-1 lead following 20 minutes of play. Philadelphia struggled to clear bodies in front of Hart’s crease throughout the period, which resulted in both goals from Parise and Staal.

Both Tyler Pitlick and Scott Laughton left the game at the beginning of the second stanza. They did not return, putting an already shorthanded Flyers teams in an even tougher situation without two (more) of their regulars in the forward lines. As for how the team, or what was left of it, played during the frame: They, uh, could’ve been better.

Philadelphia generated just three, yes three (3) shots-on-goal against a Minnesota team who surrendered the fifth-most total Goals Against in the NHL coming into tonight. To make matters worse, Staal potted his second of the night due to more poor defensive coverage in front of the crease, which gave the Wild a 3-1 lead heading into the third.

Philadelphia played their best period of hockey in the final frame of regulation, creating more shots and scoring chances than they did in the previous two periods combined. However, they failed to get another puck by Stalock and fell to Minny 4-1 thanks to an empty netter from Carson Soucy.

This was a game where the Flyers needed the top-line combination of Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, and Jakub Voracek to dominate the opposition, especially when Pitlick and Laughton went down with injuries. Simply put, the trio fell short in doing so and were arguably the opposite of what the Orange and Black needed this evening. At least the penalty kill was still good, though. There’s a positive.

The Flyers are now 17-10-5 on the year. Next game is Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets.