If you were expected the Flyers to mop the floor with the Buffalo Sabres and rekindle their offensive confidence, you were sorely disappointed on Sunday night.
A lackluster performance up and down the lineup (with a few exceptions) allowed the Sabres to control significant portions of the game.
For most of the night, the Flyers broke even. In any other context, we might view this as an admirable effort. But against an unprecedentedly awful 5v5 team like the Sabres, breaking even feels like losing.
Home/Away Scoring Chance Locations
Michael Raffl returned from his “small” bout with pneumonia in style, scoring the game-winning goal and dominating the chance battle. Before this most recent extended absence from the lineup, Raffl had been impressive at center ice. It will be interesting to see if this experiment continues. Though I’d like to see him get better linemates than Ryan White and R.J. Umberger.
Less inspiring is the continued struggles of the top line and the suddenly slumping Bellemare line. Maybe it’s finally time for Berube to break up both units?
Nothing too surprising here from a match-up perspective. Couturier drew the toughest assignment once again and handled it well enough.
On a more interesting note, the Raffl combination was used in a variety of situations and excelled everywhere.
For the second straight game, Mark Streit has been dinged for double digit chances against. Something needs to be done to stop the bleeding there.
Based on their past performance, I had some serious misgivings about putting Coburn and Grossmann together. But they pleasantly surprised with a solid even strength performance.
- Set Up – The primary pass on a scoring chance, including rebounds.
- Chance – The primary shot on a scoring chance, including deflections.
- Involved – The sum of both set ups and chances.
Although his line struggled as a whole, Claude Giroux still managed to get a touch on more scoring chances than anyone else. (Besides R.J. Umberger!!!)
