Sloppy play, turnovers were the Flyers undoing against Rangers

After a covid related halt, followed by a covid related roster shuffling, the Flyers were set to host the Rangers.  They played well enough to win, even with a make shift line up, but ultimately fell to the Rangers in a shoot out.

First Period

CF:15  CA:14  CF%: 51.72%

The revamped Flyers’ lineup attacked the Rangers from the opening faceoff. They used a strong forecheck to dictate play. The Rangers spent most of the first 10 minutes on their heels, with the Flyers able to pot a goal and draw a penalty.

With 10:03 remaining, the Flyers faced a difficult minute long stretch. Andy Andreoffs’ line got pinned deep in their end. The Rangers swarmed and any clearing attempts were aborted into a couple of icing calls. The icings saw tired players and the lines in a state of mismatch.

Artemi Panarin and his line went to work, out attempting the Flyers 5 -0 over the stretch until Travis Sanheim was able to draw a penalty. Outside of this dangerous stretch, it was the Flyers’ period.

Second Period

CF:7 CA:15 CF%: 35.00%

The Flyers would concede a powerplay goal early in the second period, but seemed to quickly regain their footing with a good shift from the Hayes-Raffl-Aube-Kubel trio, which racked up four shot attempts after the Rangers powerplay.  But that was the last sustained pressure they would apply until late in the period.

The Flyers had issues with turnovers for the remainder of the period, and it seemed to plague everyone up and down the line up.  The amount of turnovers were enough to quiet their offense, causing the transition game to fall apart. This effectively shelved their very effective forechecking efforts.

Third Period

CF:17 CA:10 CF%:62.96%

The Rangers took the lead after a really sloppy sequence by the Flyers that started with a bad Carter Hart rebound. They played with desperation from that point and started to pile up the scoring attempts with a seven attempt advantage over the period’s final eight minutes. Couturier’s line was  the driving force in the Flyers possession dominance as they repeatedly were able to win puck battles and turn them into offense.  They would score with the extra attacker to force overtime.

Corsi Winner

NYR C Kevin Rooney CF:10 CA:4  CF% 71.43

Rooney was the Rangers top corsi performer, however, despite his three shots,  he was less noticeable than his line mate Blackwell and Lafreniere. Rooney and his linemates were solid and took advantage of matchups against Flyers who had extended shifts and were tired.

Corsi Loser

PHI C Andy Andreoff CF:1 CA:5  CF%16.66

Most of Andreoff’s problems were in the first period where Panarin ran him ragged. Vigneault had seen enough as Andreoff would see only nine minutes of total ice time. To his credit, Andreoff did seem to hit everything that moved after the first period, and tilted play, if not attempts back to the Rangers end.

Conclusion

CF:39 CA:38 CF%:50.65

The Flyers controlled play despite the line up adversity. This was the first time since the Buffalo series that the team was imposing their will on their opponent for extended periods, even with a partial AHL roster. The reason for the apparent corsi “balance” were two bad stretches of turnovers and icings. If not for 120 seconds of really sloppy play, the Flyers would have had a 60/40 advantage.

Sloppy play in their own end was the Flyers undoing, impacting the corsi numbers and the score line. They will face a much tougher test at Lake Tahoe against the Bruins.