PHILADELPHIA \u2014 If the Flyers make the playoffs this season, they might be able to look back to this rare two-game home set with Tampa as a valuable learning experience.<\/p>\n
The Flyers went into Monday night\u2019s game at Xfinity Mobile Arena seeking revenge after Saturday night\u2019s 7-2 beatdown in south Philly.<\/p>\n
Rodrigo Abols, aware that the Flyers had lost only back-to-back regulation-time games once this year, said his team can pick up pointers from the encounters with one of the NHL\u2019s best teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in this situation, if we\u2019re looking to make the playoffs, we wouldn\u2019t want to play anyone else other than Tampa now to prove that we\u2019re a top team,\u201d Abols said after the morning skate. \u201cAnd then we want to be in the playoffs. And if we do want to be there, then we\u2019ve got to learn how to handle these situations when you\u2019re trying to make that point. It\u2019s a little bit of a benefit that it\u2019s against the exact same team as opposed to whoever\u2019s next up on the schedule there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Rick Tocchet said there are several benefits to playing the same team on the same sheet of ice in such a short timeframe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think every game has a story. Then you analyze it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou play the same team at home again, it\u2019s almost like a playoff thing. You get them back again. You look at the (last) game, the last 35, 40 minutes. We actually played a half-decent game. It wasn\u2019t lopsided. And then they took over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tocchet mentioned the Flyers worked on their breakouts between games. He said execution would be key Monday.<\/p>\n
In the previous game, the Flyers had two chances in the slot with the deficit at 2-1. Had had they scored there, the outcome might have been a little different.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a high execution team,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThey probably need one or two two-on-ones. We probably need four or five. That\u2019s the difference in the game sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Even though the Flyers\u2019 power play continues to struggle statistically, ranked 30th in the NHL at 15.6 percent, the coach sees some improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was better (on Saturday),\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cWe\u2019re missing reads. A couple times they were out of position and we never capitalized on them. That\u2019s the frustrating part for us. I don\u2019t care if it was a fluke goal or not, maybe it loosened some guys up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Travis Konecny returned to action Monday. His absence in Saturday\u2019s game did not help the Flyers\u2019 cause.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s second on the team in points with 38 and second in plus-minus at plus-14.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he\u2019s out, the lines get scrambled around,\u201d Tocchet said. Against a team like Tampa, that makes it harder to pick line matchups with the last change.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Rookie Denver Barkey, called up from the AHL last month, started his Flyers\u2019 stint in fine fashion with two assists in his first game.<\/p>\n
Since then, things have fallen off a bit. He entered Monday night action at minus-3, all from a minus-3 against Tampa Bay Saturday.<\/p>\n
His coach is keeping an eye on things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with the rookie thing you can hit walls,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cIs this the time he\u2019s hitting the wall? We talked after the (Saturday) game. We\u2019re going to keep an eye on him. The last couple games, his game has slipped a bit. It\u2019s hard for a young guy. I think we just have to monitor him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I like about him, he knows when he makes a mistake. You don\u2019t have to explain it. That\u2019s why his hockey IQ is up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
The Flyers know Nikita Kucherov is one of the most dangerous offensive players in the league. Yet Kucherov still came away with two goals and four points Saturday.<\/p>\n
Any adjustments to counter this threat?<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst goal, where is he?\u201d Tocchet said, mindful the Flyers left him wide open at the far post. \u201cWe should have been aware of that. When we have the puck, we have to make plays. \u2026 We have to make them play defense. We just can\u2019t slap pucks around. We have to play offense, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 If the Flyers make the playoffs this season, they might be able to look back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,189,4,56,43,540,92,5168,5167,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-404522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-lightning","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaylightning","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115885631404414250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}