The Philadelphia Flyers played a great game at five-on-five against the Las Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday. Going up against a skilled but physical, well-structured team, the Flyers were faced with a tough challenge. Philadelphia hung in there and made it a tight game.
Per Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers had a slightly better Corsi than the Golden Knights, and only trailed Vegas in high-danger chances by two.
Statistics can tell you a lot. However, you could see how tight this game was just by watching.
The Flyers lost the game in overtime after a Travis Konecny fanned on a pass, giving the puck away, and leading to the Mark Stone game-winner. The defensive effort was not strong on the play either.
It’s easy to pin the loss on one play, but the fact of the matter is that the game should never have made it to overtime.
The Flyers had three power-play chances in the game, including one in the final five minutes. They failed to convert on all of their chances.
Philadelphia’s head coach, Rick Tocchet, addressed the power play after the game.
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Tocchet addresses Flyers power-play struggles
“It’s disappointing. We had a good game. I don’t want to get negative. But the power play…” said the Flyers’ bench boss.
Tocchet pointed out some of what he saw go wrong on Thursday.
“We’re not getting middle shots. We have to get middle shots. Other than Trevor [Zegras], our flanks are having a tough time making a play. We’re not using the middle of the ice. “
In their three power-play attempts, the Flyers had just one shot with the man-advantage. After the first two attempts came up empty-handed, Tocchet changed things up, deploying a unit of Jamie Drysdale, Travis Konecny, Trevor Zegras, Bobby Brink, and Noah Cates for most of the third period opportunity. When asked why the mid-game change, Tocchet said, “Did you see the first two power plays? What would you have done?”
Among the changes, Matvei Michkov and Owen Tippett did not see a power-play shift in the third period. With it being a tie game, that could have been so the team could put more responsible players, given the fact that the original unit gave up a lot of odd-man rushes.
That was not the reason Tocchet gave. “They [Tippett and Michkov] weren’t doing much,” said Tocchet. Hw would go on to say that it was not just those two in specific. “We can pick each guy. I can name 10 guys that weren’t doing anything.”
At the end of the day, the power play is a group effort. You can’t put the blame on just one person, but you also cannot expect one player to carry the whole unit. Tocchet said, “It’s not just one guy, it’s everybody. We have to keep grinding away… we have to fix it somehow.”
It’s hard to win games when the team plays worse with the man-advantage.
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