JVR Sits as Devils Obliterate Flyers
By Scott Cole
The Flyers travelled up I-95 to take on one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams. The disparity between these two teams could not have been more apparent. The New Jersey Devils beat the Flyers in every single aspect of the game in a 7-0 shellacking. Philadelphia was no match for what came at them. Of course, when you dig deeper, there are many reasons for this.
First, the Flyers were playing without two of their top forwards. Travis Konecny is injured and placed on IR with an upper body injury. It could be short term or could be longer. No time table has been set yet. TK is the only Flyer with over 20 goals (27) and the only one with over 50 points (54). As long as he is out, his performance will be missed.
The other forward that was missing was James van Riemsdyk. With just one game left before the trade deadline, Wednesday night against the beefed up New York Rangers, the Flyers are sitting, what probably is, their best trade piece. Rumors about JVR have been swirling pretty much all season. What the Flyers will get for him is unclear. But the way this season has gone, if they play him, he will get hurt. So, sitting him right now makes the most sense.
Philadelphia has a young team at 26.8 years old. Ten players, plus two of their goalies are under 25. One of them. Elliot Desnoyers, made his season debut against the Devils. He made two shots on goal, was second on the team with six faceoffs won, delivered six hits, blocked three shots, and spent almost 15 minutes of time on the ice. Not bad for an opening debut. However, he and goaltender Samuel Ersson were both sent back down to Lehigh Valley after the game. So much for that.
The problem is that the Devils are younger, at 25.9 years and have 15 players under 25; many of them locked up to long term deals. They’ve also made a lot of great draft picks and stuck by Lindy Ruff; even after fans demanded his head by in the fall when the Flyers crushed them. In one year they have turned this team around from a weak, bottom dwelling team to a powerhouse and many of them scored last night on Ersson.
The game was scoreless until about three minutes into the second period. Jonas Siegenthaler opened up the scoring with Jack Hughes scoring his 36th goal of the years five minutes later. Dawson Mercer would close out the scoring in the second period. In the final frame, the floodgates opened as Nico Hischier, Dougie Hamilton, Jesper Bratt, and Nathan Bastian also scored.
Ersson did all he could and stopped 29 of the 36 shots he faced. Meanwhile, Devils netminder Akira Schmid stopped all 23 shots he saw. And if you think this is bad, the Devils are hot in the market for Timo Meier and the Rangers are looking at adding Patrick Kane.
This is also the sixth time in the last seven games that the Flyers have come out with little to no energy. They played “heartless” games against Seattle, both in Philly and on the road, dropped an ugly game against Vancouver, played listless against Edmonton, got embarrassed by the Canadiens, and came out cold against New Jersey.
While it is painfully obvious that the playoffs are nothing but a pipe dream now, it still is sad to see this team just going through the motions. Even if they aren’t good, they used to play with heart, energy, and some fight in them. I hope they can get it back to close this season on.