Clearly it wasn’t the absence of home cooking that caused the Philadelphia Flyers‘ poor play over the past two weeks.
In their return to the Wells Fargo Center after a five-game road trip, the Flyers were yet again dominated by a poor opponent, falling to the Colorado Avalanche by a score of 4-0. Avs goalie Reto Berra made 25 saves as the Flyers were held off the scoresheet for the first time this year.
The first period was uninspiring on the part of both teams, but Colorado was able to light the lamp once on a particularly fluky goal. Michal Neuvirth, the Flyers’ best player during their road trip, failed to seal off the left post on a harmless flip shot by Jarome Iginla, somehow letting it slip through his pads to give the Avalanche a 1-0 lead only 57 seconds into the contest.
But it was the second period when things truly fell apart. Yet again, the Avalanche got off to a fantastic start, as Matt Duchene beat Neuvirth right in front to extend their lead to two goals. But Duchene didn’t stop there. Minutes later, he gobbled up a rebound and smacked it past Neuvirth to give Colorado a well-deserved 3-0 lead. The Flyers were outshot in the second period 14-7, in a performance comparable to the pathetic first stanza in Edmonton when the team gave up 19 shots to the Oilers.
Any hope of a miracle comeback was extinguished early in the third period when Colorado took full advantage of a Mark Streit turnover and eventually pushed the puck past Neuvirth on a wraparound attempt. From that moment on, the Avalanche were content to sit back and keep the Flyers to outside, knowing that Philadelphia lacked the creativity to make their way to the high-danger scoring areas.
Over the past two weeks, the Flyers have fallen to New Jersey, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Buffalo (twice) and now Colorado. It’s getting harder to categorize these losses as poor performances, and easier to accept that Philadelphia is actually worse than these mediocre-to-bad squads. And starting with Thursday’s game against the Washington Capitals, the schedule starts to actually get difficult. A frightening prospect for a struggling squad.
Comment of the Night
So uhhh. Should I go back to playing Fallout 4?
>> chicago_flyers_fan
