Sorry for the late recap, but it’s New Year’s, so I’m not really sorry. In any event, last night’s Flyers game still happened, and they lost by a nasty 5-2 score. I’ll admit: watching the game in a hungover haze isn’t really the way to analyze things, but one thing was clearly evident.
The Flyers miss Chris Pronger. Kind of ironic considering they were playing the Ducks too, huh?
The defense just looks lost without him. I think every Ducks goal was off of a bad defensive error in front. Failure to clear rebounds, failure to pick up a guy in the slot, stuff like that. Sergei Bobrovsky wasn’t all that sharp, but he had literally no support.
Sean O`Donnell, probably one of the most insightful Flyers in terms of post-game commentary, talked about the loss of Pronger and it’s impact last night with the reporters in Anaheim.
“Chris is a great friend of mine and this team needs him, but this is the whole team right now, not just as if one D-pairing is struggling without him. We’re all struggling. We didn’t have Chris the first two games of the year and won.
This is true, and it’s nice that they’re not looking for excuses, but there is some trickle-down effect there. If one pairing loses a key guy, it rubs off on the rest of the groups. Just like offense can be contagious, good and bad defense can as well.
Obviously, even without Pronger, the Flyers are a deep defensive team. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just a funk. They’ll get out of it — hopefully by tomorrow.
Questions with Answers
- Playing the back end of back-to-back games on the road could lead to a poor performance. Does it happen? Yep, sloppy game, despite the fact that they tried to come back and win it.
- Sergei Bobrovsky is back in net for the first time since getting hung out to dry against Florida. And after sitting in the press box. How’s he look? Meh.
- The Ducks are not a very good team. Can the Flyers take advantage? Two losses against The Team Formerly Owned By Disney this season.
- It’s New Year’s Eve, so does Joffrey Lupul start the party early by spiking Richards’ and Carters’ Gatorade? What do you think? Of course he did.
