The Flyers coming into Monday’s night game versus the Buffalo Sabres were looking to do something they haven’t done in nearly ten years. Start the season with a 3-0 record.
That didn’t happen. This was the first game in the absence of Sean Couturier, who’s out with a rib injury. The Flyers allowed five or more goals only twice at home last season. Carter Hart was pulled in a home game where he’s been dominating in the past two seasons at the Wells Fargo Center.
The Buffalo Sabres were clearly the better team tonight and it showed.
This wasn’t easy but here are three pluses and one minus from Monday’s 6-1 loss.
Tonight’s Pluses:
Morgan Frost
Morgan Frost was paired with Oskar Lindblom and Travis Konecny for his first NHL game in 343 days. He immediately made an impact by drawing a penalty in the first two minutes of the game.
For his size, being able to win some defensive battles, getting gritty in those forecheck opportunities is a nice improvement to his game and something he definitely worked on during the offseason.
Morgan’s presence in some big shoes to fill in the lineup doesn’t go unnoticed. One thing to note
Brian Elliot:
Five saves on five shots since entering the game in the 2nd period earned him the shutout. But more importantly, he’s now warm and ready for tomorrow. A lot of time spent in their own end of this game but currently, Elliot held his head high and had the plays well-read.
The 12-21-62 Line
Often times in hockey, the fourth line might get overlooked. But the 12-21-62 line tonight was challenged and was certainly up to it.
AV presented some key opportunities early on in the opening frame of the game and was great on the back and fore-check tonight at the Wells Fargo Center. Most shots came from the fourth line pairing.
Those three got a ton of time being down by four in the third while AV was doing quite the experimenting in the 3rd period being down by five. Now, of course, being down in a hockey game trying to create any sort of opportunity certainly feels like everyone on the losing side was skating with their head cut off. This line got good looks and it’s possible Aube-Kubel could be on line with Frost and Farabee tomorrow night.
Tonight’s Minus
Flyers Defense
Philadelphia’s defense did not perform well tonight. It all started in the first frame when Erik Gustafsson coughed the puck up three times in less than ten seconds giving Buffalo four shots including one heck of a chance by Buffalo’s forward Tage Thompson which Carter Hart was able to bail out his teammate on.
With the defensive breakdown in the opening frame, the Flyers were out-shot 11 to 4 in the first period. The orange and black were a turnover machine tonight.
Philadelphia failed to get to the hard areas of the ice at times which in-result was very easy for Buffalo to defend. The shots were coming from the perimeter and nobody was truly in front of the net to provide some presence by getting some screens on Carter Hutton.
Flyers didn’t make their opponent work harder. Simple as that. The orange and black failed to get the biscuit in deep to try and cycle some offense chances and win some puck battles to capitalize on a scoring route. Buffalo came to play by getting out of their 0-2 start.
Flyers simply just needed to simplify their game. They didn’t. They failed.