Fansided

Flyers Lose 4-1 To Islanders

By Collin Coyne |
ELMONT, NEW YORK - JANUARY 17: Adam Pelech #3 of the New York Islanders is checked into the boards by Claude Giroux #28 of the Philadelphia Flyers during the first period at the UBS Arena on January 17, 2022 in Elmont, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
ELMONT, NEW YORK - JANUARY 17: Adam Pelech #3 of the New York Islanders is checked into the boards by Claude Giroux #28 of the Philadelphia Flyers during the first period at the UBS Arena on January 17, 2022 in Elmont, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

In their first of back to back games against the Islanders, the Flyers put up significantly more fight than they have recently. However, it was still not enough as they fell 4-1 and are well on their way to a second straight 10-game losing streak. If you didn’t catch the contest, you didn’t miss much, but there are certainly plenty of things worth talking about.

THE GOOD:

LIPSTICK ON A PIG: In recent games the Flyers would come out flat, improve throughout, but still generally be the team getting outplayed. Tonight I can honestly say the Flyers outplayed the Islanders for incredibly long stretches of play. Even worse, the Islanders didn’t score on the times they seemed in control, they just took advantage of mistakes that the Flyers weren’t able to.

CAM YORK IS PRETTY GOOD: York put another pretty solid game on his resume tonight. Not especially noteworthy at most points, but when players like Keith Yandle are noticeable black holes on both ends of the ice, “unremarkable” is a nice treat.

THE BAD:

CAN I JUST SAY EVERYTHING?: They lost. Again. And they weren’t exceptionally close to winning either. After a first period snoozefest, both teams came out hard and aggressive looking to score and it looked like the Flyers were going to break through. The Isles beat them to it. Then scored again. Then scored on themselves. Then in the 3rd period only down one, the Flyers put on a Bad News Bears-ian display in front of their net that saw Anthony Beauvillier score the backbreaker after five orange sweaters decided to let him stand unchecked staring at Martin Jones as the puck bounced to him.

WHERE IS THE OFFENSE?: The Flyers technically scored a goal tonight, and it in fact belongs to Travis Konecny, finally snapping a goalless streak that seemingly stretched back to the Jurassic Period. But calling it a goal is generous. After attempting to dump the puck in, he bounced it off the Islanders defender which trickled past the unsuspecting Isles netminder for the team’s only tally.

BURY THE KIDS: Morgan Frost has been playing poorly due to a lack of confidence in his game, everyone knows that. Something similar happened to Oskar Lindblom early in the season, though recently he has broke through after being promoted to a higher line. Why then is Frost being buried on the bottom line? Playing with Connor Bunnaman is the kiss of death for offensive success, and when a prospect needs to get going, saddling him with bad linemates isn’t the way to develop them.

THE UGLY:

NOT SO SPECIAL: The powerplay tonight was awful. I don’t need to elaborate more, but I will. After multiple chances to break through in the first period, they failed to amount anything resembling pressure, and when the Islanders gifted them man advantages while they were behind? They weren’t any better.

The long short of it is you can’t win games if you don’t score. An excellent goaltending and defensive performance from New York would always make that difficult, but when you seem unable to finish any of your chances at even strength, special teams needs to step up in a big way and they just haven’t been. The Flyers best special teams scoring chance actually came on the penalty kill, with a few breakaway attempts.

The Flyers are a lost team playing bad hockey, and with some high profile pending UFAs and some long large contracts, Chuck Fletcher has an interesting task ahead of him.

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