Flyers hand Sharks their first win of the season

It was bound to happen eventually. You never want your team to be the one to give a team their first win after a lengthy losing streak. The Flyers have now done it twice and are the only team in NHL history to lose twice to a team that was winless in 10+ games.

They first did it back in 2017-18 to the 0-10-1 Coyotes. And now they’ve done it to the previously 0-10-1 Sharks. There’s a lot of things that make this loss look even uglier than just losing to a winless team. The Sharks were bleeding goals against, having been out scored 20-3 in their last two games and 32-4 in their last five. They had given up 4.91 goals per game.

The Flyers could only muster up one goal despite outshooting the Sharks 39-19. San Jose did not have more than eight shots in a single period, their most being the eight they threw at the net in the final period. This likely won’t be the worst thing to happen to the Flyers this season. But they’ll have to eat this one for a bit as the first team to lose to the Sharks this season.

This is what a rebuilding team will look like. They’ll suffer embarrassing losses more than once in a season. In fact, Philadelphia had been shutout 5-0 in their previous game and has now lost seven of their last nine games. This is what was expected to happen. But this one came with far too many mental mistakes.

The power play has continued to struggle mightily as the Flyers failed on all four attempts they were given. To make matters worse, the Sharks game-winning goal was scored on a power play. 1-for-5 is still better than 0-for-4 when it turns out to be the goal that mattered most. Giveaways were also the Flyers undoing as they were charged with 19 total – 10 giveaways and nine takeaways by the Sharks.

The shot totals will tell a different story as it appears the Flyers were simply goalied by Mackenzie Blackwood, who came in with an abysmal 4.78 GAA and .879 SV%. He gave up just one goal on 39 shots for a .974 SV%. Sometimes a goaltender can be the story, but it was far from that in this one. All of the above factors played a role in the Flyers failing to generate a ton of momentum even though they had a 20-shot difference.

That wasn’t going to matter when Anthony Duclair scored 1:43 into the game. It also didn’t matter when William Eklund’s power play tally put the Sharks up 2-0 late in the second period. Even when Joel Farabee cut the score to 2-1 with almost a minute remaining in that same period.

Because when the third period buzzer sounded, all that mattered was the 2-1 final score in favor of the Sharks. While the Flyers will have to take this one on the chin for awhile, they won’t have time to wallow. They will head to Anaheim for a rematch with the Ducks.