After dropping a heartbreaker the previous night in Motor City, the Flyers returned home for the first of a two-game home stand before heading out on a six-game road trip. With Cam York benched because John Tortorella has been unhappy with his play since returning from an injury, the Flyers just collapsed against the Los Angeles Kings. A 3-2 lead, thanks to a pair of goals by Tyson Forester became a 7-3 rout as Anze Kopitar and Kevin Fiala each scored a pair for the Kings.
"It's a good hockey club, it's a team that checks very well. A good challenge for us here. I thought we handled ourselves well for 40 minutes, but we couldn't find our way through 60, " said Tortorella in the post-game press conference. And he's right. If hockey had two periods, the Flyers played well.
Starting Off Well
Just a few minutes after Fiala scored a breakaway with Jamie Drysdale and Travis Sanheim trailing, Noah Cates tied the game up. Foerster intercepted a pass and fed it to Bobby Brink who found Cates. Cates skated in front of the net, deked out Darcy Kuemper, and buried the puck behind him. The goal is Cates' fourth of the season, and the third this month. If the Flyers want to turn things around, Cates is one of the guys who it is great to have getting hot right now.
Tanner Jeannot scored just 91 seconds into the second period. There was traffic in front of the net with Drysdale, Sanheim, and Morgan Frost all in the crease. Warren Foegele tried a wrap-around, but the puck got lost in the skates, and Jeannot poked it in while Aleksei Kolsov couldn't see it.
The Flyers had two great chances to tie the game up shortly after. Brink was stopped by Kuemper on a fantastic breakaway. Just minutes later, Matvei Michkov blasted a shot from the blue line that Sean Couturier deflected. The puck hit the post, trickled down, skimmed the goal line, and was slapped away by Kuemper before anyone could jump on it.
This is when Foerster had his breakthrough night. Both of his goals came four minutes apart halfway through the second. On his first goal, Foerster caused a turnover and raced down the ice with Scott Laughton. Laughton made a wrap-around shot to Foerster who tied it up. Just minutes later, Foerster scored a goal just as the power play ended. Frost, behind the net, fed Foerster who buried the puck behind Kuemper.
Here Come the Kings
Kopitar started it off by scoring with 43 seconds left in the second. LA's captain took a pass off a face-off, charged the net, and squirted it behind Kolosov who was clearly not ready for the fast reaction by Kopitar.
In the third, the Kings, one of the top teams in the West, showed why. Foegele scored on a screamer of a slapshot with a lot of traffic in front of the net to reclaim the lead for LA just two minutes into the period.
Halfway into the period, Kopitar notched his second goal when he was left unattended streaking down the center ice. He was fed a pass by Alex Turcotte and Kopitar fired off a shot that Kolosov had no chance of stopping to extend the lead. Quinton Byfield would score on an empty net when Tortorella pulled Kolosov with less than four minutes to go. Fiala would cap it off with another goal a minute later.
Pluses and Minuses
Unlike the game against Detroit, the Flyers matched LA shot for shot and had some great scoring chances. They showed some fight and looked well (at least in the first two periods) against one of the NHL's better teams. Foerster had the second three-point game of his career. It's also nice to see some of the other forwards, such as Cates, starting to heat up. And had Brink's shot and Couturier's deflection gone in, this would've been an entirely different game.
However, the Flyers had some big misses. Just as with Patrick Kane in the previous game, you can't leave Kopitar all by himself. Both of his goals should never have happened but they happened because you left a great player all by himself in which to create havoc and scoring opportunities.
Even then, Kolsov looked bad on Kopitar's two goals. He should have been paying more attention to someone as good and experienced as Kopitar. Even then, for several of the other goals, he was let down by the defense. Having three or four guys in front of you creating a screen, and these were Flyers' players mind you, you aren't going to see what's coming at you. The defense let Kolosov down. In particular, the pairing of Sanheim and Drysdale were -4 and -3, respectively, and on ice for five of LA's goals.
Philly has just one day to lick their wounds. Columbus comes to town on Saturday.