The Flyers followed up one of their best even strength performances of the season with one of their worst on Thursday night.
For only a brief stretch of 5-6 minutes did the Flyers look even remotely like a competitive team.
This was the antithesis of a score affected game. Despite jumping out to a huge lead early in the 2nd period, the Canucks continued to pour it on for the rest of the game. They doubled the Flyers in even strength scoring chances and owned the territorial edge for most of the contest.
Home/Away Chance Locations
A disturbingly high percentage of the ‘Nucks chances came in the low slot, directly in front of the Flyers goaltenders.
The Umberger/Schenn/Simmonds experiment was an unmitigated disaster in the defensive zone. To put their performance in some perspective, the Flyers gave up 18 chances at even strength. This line was on the ice for roughly half of those. Give credit to Willie Desjardins and the Canucks for finding a match up and exploiting it.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t the Sedin twins doing to the damage. Rather it was Nick Bonino, he of 2 goals in his last 27 games.
Schenn’s line was obliterated in relatively tame minutes against the Canucks middle 6.
Ouch … what else is there to say?
Luke Schenn and Carlo Colaiacovo were the only pairing to even come close to breaking even in chances. That about sums up how the defense’s night went.
Charlie talked in last night’s recap about how noticeable the Couturier line was, and for good reason. When the rest of the team was floundering, he continued to set up quality chances. All that while completely neutralizing the Sedin twins at even strength.
