PHILADELPHIA – Two issues which have plagued the Flyers for most of the season cost them a valuable point in a shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.
Their sporadic power play, ranked dead last in the NHL at just over 15 percent, went 0-for-4 with the man advantage.
And for the NHL-leading 45th time this season, they allowed an opponent to score first. Although their record is a decent 18-19-8 when giving up a first goal, that’s a far cry from their overall winning percentage of .561.
So the Flyers saw their modest two-game win streak come to an end with a 2-1 shootout loss at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Columbus scored the only goal of the tiebreaker when Kirill Marchenko connected on the final try of the Blue Jackets’ three attempts.
The Flyers did pick up a valuable point but with the position they’re in, that was a bit of a letdown.
Philadelphia’s power play started to pick up in recent weeks but now it’s in a major slump again.
“I think it hasn’t been very good,” Jamie Drysdale said after the game. “We’ve actually had a lot of work. I think we try to slow it down and look for perfect plays. It just wasn’t clicking. And it needed to.”
Drysdale was asked for his opinion on why the Flyers are stuck in 32nd place in this important category.
“I think it’s just a matter of execution,” he said. “We know what we should be doing. We have to execute better and that’s the bottom line.”
Are the Flyers overpassing with the man advantage?
“Yeah,” said Drysdale. “When you’re kind of in a slump like this, simplify, throw the puck at the net and the way we have to get out of it is to get gritty goals in front of the net.”
As for giving up the first goal of the game so often, the Flyers know they can’t afford to get out of the gate so slowly on a daily basis. It’s not a formula for success.
Coach Rick Tocchet echoed what Drysdale said about the slow starts.
“I think our start is just a lack of execution,” he said. “We had two or three two-on-ones or three-on-twos. . .that’s execution. Get to your game early. The good thing is we come back. We just have to flip the script on the other one.”
How about the power play? The Flyers had a four-minute power play which bridged the second intermission and never really generated a serious scoring chance.
“They didn’t have the juice, the confidence of shooting the puck,” Tocchet said. “Taking it to the hole. When you don’t score it gets more pressure. Sometimes you just have to have the courage to get to the middle and just rip it. A lot of guys are kind of freezing right now. We have to help them unlock some of that stuff.”
The teams exchanged goals in the first period.
After falling behind early once again, the Flyers responded with a goal from Alex Bump.
He scored his second goal in his fifth NHL game at 10:24 after he cleaned up Emil Andrae’s point shot which made it through a maze of bodies before eluding goaltender Jet Greaves.
Marchenko gave Columbus the lead with a goal at 4:21. Goalie Dan Vladar was sprawled on his back from an initial scrum in front and had no chance to stop the Blue Jacket’s shot.
>Barkey banged up
Denver Barkey had to leave the game in the first period after a cheap behind-the-back hit by Marchenko on the end boards just to the rear of the Columbus net. Barkey did not get up for several minutes. Officials reviewed the play and decided to give Marchenko just a two-minute boarding penalty.
Barkey remained out for the rest of the first period for testing but returned for the second.
To his credit, Barkey didn’t shy away from contact after the big hit. That’s just the way he plays the game.
“We were all trying to get up for this game today,” he said. “Bring our best. I thought we did a good job but we wanted two points at the end of the day.”
Barkey also chimed on the Flyers’ struggling power play.
“I think we just have to get pucks to the net,” he said. “Capitalize on our chances. We’re drawing penalties, we’re getting the looks. It’s just about banging in a greasy one. I think it will turn around from there.”
>Short shots
The Flyers are off until they begin a three-game West Coast swing, which opens on Wednesday night in Anaheim. They head crosstown to take on the Kings in Los Angeles on Thursday and finish up with a Saturday afternoon game at San Jose.
Thursday’s third-period comeback win at Minnesota was the Flyers’ seventh of the season. That’s sixth in the NHL. Vegas is first with 10. . .Tippett notched his 40th point in the Wild game, making it four straight seasons with at least that many points. His career high is 53.
Travis Konency is just the fourth Flyer in the last 30 seasons to record seven or more 20-goal seasons with the franchise.
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