PHILADELPHIA \u2013 Two issues which have plagued the Flyers for most of the season cost them a valuable point in a shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Their sporadic power play, ranked dead last in the NHL at just over 15 percent, went 0-for-4 with the man advantage.And for the NHL-leading 45th time this season, they allowed an opponent to score first. Although their record is a decent 18-19-8 when giving up a first goal, that\u2019s a far cry from their overall winning percentage of .561.<\/p>\n
So the Flyers saw their modest two-game win streak come to an end with a 2-1 shootout loss at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Columbus scored the only goal of the tiebreaker when Kirill Marchenko connected on the final try of the Blue Jackets\u2019 three attempts.<\/p>\n
The Flyers did pick up a valuable point but with the position they\u2019re in, that was a bit of a letdown.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia\u2019s power play started to pick up in recent weeks but now it\u2019s in a major slump again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it hasn\u2019t been very good,\u201d Jamie Drysdale said after the game. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually had a lot of work. I think we try to slow it down and look for perfect plays. It just wasn\u2019t clicking. And it needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drysdale was asked for his opinion on why the Flyers are stuck in 32nd place in this important category.\u201cI think it\u2019s just a matter of execution,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know what we should be doing. We have to execute better and that\u2019s the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Are the Flyers overpassing with the man advantage?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d said Drysdale. \u201cWhen you\u2019re kind of in a slump like this, simplify, throw the puck at the net and the way we have to get out of it is to get gritty goals in front of the net.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for giving up the first goal of the game so often, the Flyers know they can\u2019t afford to get out of the gate so slowly on a daily basis. It\u2019s not a formula for success.<\/p>\n
Coach Rick Tocchet echoed what Drysdale said about the slow starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our start is just a lack of execution,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had two or three two-on-ones or three-on-twos. . .that\u2019s execution. Get to your game early. The good thing is we come back. We just have to flip the script on the other one.\u201d<\/p>\n
How about the power play? The Flyers had a four-minute power play which bridged the second intermission and never really generated a serious scoring chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t have the juice, the confidence of shooting the puck,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cTaking it to the hole. When you don\u2019t score it gets more pressure. Sometimes you just have to have the courage to get to the middle and just rip it. A lot of guys are kind of freezing right now. We have to help them unlock some of that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teams exchanged goals in the first period.<\/p>\n
After falling behind early once again, the Flyers responded with a goal from Alex Bump.<\/p>\n
He scored his second goal in his fifth NHL game at 10:24 after he cleaned up Emil Andrae\u2019s point shot which made it through a maze of bodies before eluding goaltender Jet Greaves.<\/p>\n
Marchenko gave Columbus the lead with a goal at 4:21. Goalie Dan Vladar was sprawled on his back from an initial scrum in front and had no chance to stop the Blue Jacket\u2019s shot.<\/p>\n
Barkey banged up<\/p>\n
Denver Barkey had to leave the game in the first period after a cheap behind-the-back hit by Marchenko on the end boards just to the rear of the Columbus net. Barkey did not get up for several minutes. Officials reviewed the play and decided to give Marchenko just a two-minute boarding penalty.<\/p>\n
Barkey remained out for the rest of the first period for testing but returned for the second.<\/p>\n
To his credit, Barkey didn\u2019t shy away from contact after the big hit. That\u2019s just the way he plays the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all trying to get up for this game today,\u201d he said. \u201cBring our best. I thought we did a good job but we wanted two points at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barkey also chimed on the Flyers\u2019 struggling power play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we just have to get pucks to the net,\u201d he said. \u201cCapitalize on our chances. We\u2019re drawing penalties, we\u2019re getting the looks. It\u2019s just about banging in a greasy one. I think it will turn around from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Short shots<\/p>\n
The Flyers are off until they begin a three-game West Coast swing, which opens on Wednesday night in Anaheim. They head crosstown to take on the Kings in Los Angeles on Thursday and finish up with a Saturday afternoon game at San Jose. \u2026 Thursday\u2019s third-period comeback win at Minnesota was the Flyers\u2019 seventh of the season. That\u2019s sixth in the NHL. Vegas is first with 10. \u2026 Tippett notched his 40th point in the Wild game, making it four straight seasons with at least that many points. His career high is 53. \u2026 Travis Konency is just the fourth Flyer in the last 30 seasons to record seven or more 20-goal seasons with the franchise.<\/p>\n
Wayne Fish is a freelance writer. www.flyingfishhockey.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2013 Two issues which have plagued the Flyers for most of the season cost them a valuable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,4,56,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-504819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116233829644544440","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504819","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=504819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}