Marty Brodeur may no longer occupy the crease that stood like the Berlin Wall in front of the Flyers, but that doesn’t mean the New Jersey Devils no longer haunt the Flyers.
They play as Jakub Voracek said earlier, “an annoying” game and Thursday night was no different as they left the Flyers without any bag of Halloween goodies after a 4-1 victory in which the Flyers were simply awful much of the evening (see Instant Replay).
“They’ve played with more speed this year than in the past,” said goalie Steve Mason, who was left to fend for himself on many of the 33 shots he faced. “They play a tough game. Patient, they wait for things.”
With the Flyers unable to score goals, even one they give up on special teams is a dagger in their collective hearts.
Travis Zajac burned the Flyers’ PK units for two power-play goals — that’s five the Flyers have given up over four games.
It’s bad enough the Flyers struggle for offense five-on-five but when their power play sags and their penalty kill can’t stop a balloon, it’s a mess.
“You can’t look at one part but I think tonight, I think we can all do a little better through the 60 minutes,” coach Dave Hakstol said.
“Not just that portion of the game. We didn’t start with the puck very much tonight and that’s one area we can look at. That’s the first area of every play.”
The power-play goals the Flyers are giving up begin with open passes through the middle of the slot.
“Our penalty killing is doing a good job pushing things to the outside but we’ve give up three in the last two games from that critical area, so we’ll address that,” Hakstol said.
Mason said it’s more about work ethic.
“We have to outwork their power plays,” he said. “Some open space there and they capitalized. That’s the biggest thing. When they have opportunities, we have to shut them down.”
As bad as things were, the Flyers were in it. They got a dirty goal from Luke Schenn, his third point in two games, to take a 1-0 lead late in the second period only to see the Devils tie it on Zajac’s first marker.
Things fell apart in the opening 2:32 of the final period when first, the Devils killed off the remaining 1:12 of a Flyers power play, then got a nifty wrister from Kyle Palmieri off the rush for one goal, quickly followed by Zajac’s second power-play goal.
“It wasn’t a good start and it set us back the entire period,” Mason said. “They have some speed and they create chances. It’s my job to stop the puck and try to do the best you can. We have to have a better overall game.”
Just like that, the game was history.
“This year, we’ve had good third periods and tonight it wasn’t a factor,” Flyers captain Claude Giroux said. “The whole game, we didn’t do little details that we’ve been doing and it cost us.”
While New Jersey had many uncontested and open shots, the Flyers struggled to get decent scoring chances against another club beneath them in the standings.
They lost to Buffalo on Tuesday and meet the Sabres again on Friday.
“I think we’re not in a position at all to take teams lightly,” Schenn said. “That’s the last thing we ever should be thinking. You can’t take anyone lightly. There’s too much parity in the league.”
Did we mention the Flyers had two, too-many-men penalties in this one? The second penalty resulted in a Zajac’s second goal to make it 3-1.
Hakstol pulled an Andy Reid and said that’s on him — not the players.
“I’ve got to communicate better on the bench,” he said. “That’s the bottom line. I’m not going any further than that.”
It angered Voracek, too.
“There’s no excuse for that,” he said. “It should happen twice a year, not twice a game. It came back to bite us in the ass in the end and there’s no excuse for that. You barely win a game with one goal, let’s be honest.”
Right now, the Flyers are losing with one goal.