After an emotional game on Thursday, the Philadelphia Flyers went up to Ottawa to face the Senators without their captain, who is expected to leave the team in the coming days. Cam Atkinson found his jersey slightly heavier with a new letter on it, given the opportunity to hold the “A” in the absence of Captain Claude Giroux.
The Good:
FIGHT IN THE NEW LEADERS: With Giroux likely out the door in the coming days, the Flyers turned to their assistant captains tonight in Ottawa. With both Laughton and Couturier still hurt, Atkinson and Hayes suddenly had a lot of pressure on them in the first game without the captain. Both Hayes and Atkinson had pretty solid nights, with the latter scoring the team’s only goal. But neither was able to make a true statement in the Flyers loss.
TRADE VALUE I GUESS Both Martin Jones and Derrick Brassard are other players that the Flyers have been expected to rent out at the deadline. Jones especially had a great night, stopping most of the hard pucks that came his way, despite some occasionally lackluster defense in front of him. Many players on the Flyers may find themselves deadline bait come Monday, so it’s important to note their play as of late.
The Bad:
THEY LOST, AGAIN: This speaks for itself, but to elaborate, a team coming off of a massive emotional win sort of laid an egg against a really beatable team. Not all too much positive to take away from this other than the potential draft position.
BANGED UP KIDS: It seems like everything is going against the Flyers this year. Morgan Frost took a puck to the face yesterday, and Cam York, not to be outdone, took one to the face tonight. All this including Carter Hart’s cup check last night is sure to instill a fear that many of these players are able to stay healthy, despite all of them returning to the games in question.
The Ugly:
NO G: Claude Giroux is not playing. He likely will not be a Flyer for much longer. That is not ok.
PENALTY CIRCUS: There are a lot of things to be mad at the current Flyers for, but maybe an underrated one is the inability to avoid putting men in the box. I have no stats to back any of this up, but it feels that a number of Flyers are often in the box, putting an already awful penalty kill out for way more time than it should.
The Flyers are about to enter a period of great reform. Some are excited, many more are not. When push comes to shove, they still need to play the rest of their games this year, and the Islanders this Sunday may not take it easy on the fragile fanbase.