Takeaways: Flyers fizzle out, drop preseason matchup with Bruins 5-1

The Flyers closed out their preseason opening back-to-back on the road up in Boston, and despite a strong enough start, things ended up going sideways on the Flyers in a big way — losing their starting goaltender to injury late in the first period, and ultimately falling into a four-goal third period meltdown, going out in this one with a whimper.

The Basics

First period: 13:31 – Michael Eyssimont (Brunet, Jeannot), 18:06 – Jacob Gaucher (Luchanko, Seeler)
Second period: No scoring
Third period: 5:19 – Morgan Geekie (Pastrnak, H. Lindholm)PPG, 7:43 – Brian Halonen (Brunet, Gaunce), 14:49 – Elias Lindholm (Zadorov, Zacha), 18:47 – Michael Eyssimont (Locmelis)
SOG: 21 (PHI) – 25 (BOS)

Some Takeaways

Bending but (mostly) not breaking

The early goings in this one were, if nothing else, a little bit tentative — a little bit choppy, and not a whole ton of momentum gathered on either side. This bit was good news for the Flyers, because when there was momentum to be built, it ended in the ice being tilted away from their favor. That is, the Flyers spent some long stretches in the first period running around in their own end, being asked to do a lot in terms of getting in lanes and breaking up plays along the wall, and just generally bending without breaking.

The good news, though, is that the Flyers largely did well to put out some fires in their own end and keep this much more talented Bruins lineup quite well contained. There was a bit of a damper put on things in that opening frame as the Bruins were ultimately able to break through for one goal (more on that later), but that was more of a flukey play, a perfect storm, than anything else. All in all, it might not have been the prettiest of showings, but it was a steadier bit of team defense delivered by the Flyers than we saw the night before in Hershey, at least to begin.

Vladar exits

No matter how this game was going to end up, the biggest storyline to come out of it was the injury taken by Dan Vladar late in the first period.

The play was a bit of a strange one, and it’s hard to tell exactly what happened there, but the result from this sequence — which saw Vladar stretch out for a poke check and catch a bit of contact from the Bruins’ Tanner Jeannot and immediately drop his blocker and pop up favoring his right arm — did end up leading to that first goal sneaking through him, and a prompt departure from the game.

Aleksei Kolosov was brought in in relief, and held up reasonably well all things considered, but Vladar’s status ultimately looms large over all else. We likely won’t have a more official update on him until at least tomorrow, but the ripples of any potential absence for him could be quite major.

Gaucher doing his thing

The Flyers’ offense wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders in this one, as they struggled to break through onto the scoresheet in a marked way, but they did see one quite pretty goal put away to get them on the board.

This one both was and was not a vintage Gaucher goal — the speed that he brought to get himself into the offensive zone was impressive, and he seemed to have gained a step from where he was at by the end of last season with the Phantoms, but the focus on putting the head down and driving the net and looking for a greasy goal is exactly how he’s made his bread and butter up to this point in his professional game. There was some flash in there, to be sure, but it was a hardworking play above all else, and it’s something that the Flyers could have used a bit more of throughout the course of this one.

Knuble watch

Back in the lineup for the second night in a row, Knuble wasn’t able to get himself on the board again tonight, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. Knuble was able to carry over the momentum from his showing in Hershey quite well, keeping the energy up and creating a handful of good looks along the way. He was able to bring a nice bit of flash in his work on the penalty kill, and had a good sequence of creating pressure in the neutral zone, and he was able to remain an active presence in the offensive zone as well — his setup for a sneaky shot in the first period and then his post hit on a shot from the high slot later on made for a couple of the Flyers’ better looks of the night.

The lack of a breakthrough onto the scoresheet was a bit of a shame to see, but it remains that he’s doing just about everything that he can to keep himself in the conversation for an NHL job.

Wheels, off

We gave the Flyers some credit off the top for the work that they were able to do in the first period to limit the damage that the Bruins were able to do, but this ultimately wasn’t a level of play that they were able to maintain as the game went on. They were able to keep their defensive play still pretty stable through the second period, but by the third period, things were unraveling on them in a big way.

It was in some ways a repeat of what happened for this group late in Monday’s game in Hershey — and something that Rick Tocchet spoke on specifically postgame — that it became clear when fatigue was creeping in and when the Flyers began to let some carelessness in their coverages and puck management come into play. Now, if this is going to happen, the preseason is when you can live with seeing it unfold, but with this same drop-off plaguing them in back to back games, this is something that the group is going to need to work on shoring up, particularly considering the number of bubble players in this mix, players who really need to be bringing their very best to keep their pushes for NHL jobs alive.

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