The Philadelphia Flyers faced a motivated team last night in the Columbus Blue Jackets, and were never really in the game. It took the Jackets almost 10 minutes to break through on the scoreboard, but there was little doubt about the outcome for most of the game.
The Flyers were a step slower all night. I don't know if it's the second game of back-to-back was catching up to them, or a little reality check after the four game winning streak, but they were not good enough last night. Former Flyer Scott Hartnell showed up his teammates with a three point night in the win, and ex-Flyer Sergei Bobrovsky even picked up an assist.
Game Flow
Goals:
0 – 1. Foligno (Wennberg, Hartnell). PHI on-ice: 10, 28, 76, 15, 22
0 – 2. Johnson. PHI on-ice: 20, 21, 25, 55, 82
1 – 2. Raffl (Schenn, Gostisbehere). PHI on-ice: 19, 12, 28, 23, 53
1 – 3. Foligno (Hartnell, Bobrovsky). PHI on-ice: 14, 17, 20, 15, 22
1 – 4. Hartnell (Wennberg, Foligno). PHI on-ice: 14, 21, 15, 22
Forwards
I don't feel like there was a whole lot to choose from between the lines tonight. They were uniformly outworked by the hungry Blue Jackets. It is interesting to see the Couturier line have their second straight down night, and Ryan White return to the lineup and get several more minutes than his linemates.
Furthermore, getting outskated kept the Flyers off the power play all night. As a result, there were not too many chances for Claude Giroux or Jake Voracek last night.
Defense
Similar to the forwards, I'm not sure I see too much in comparing defensive pairings after the team was uniformly outworked. The stats do say quite a bit about a tough night for Michael Del Zotto and Luke Schenn. The Jackets also added injury to insult last night for Schenn, so we'll have to check on him today.
Silver linings for the Flyers may be a solid night in a prominent role for Evgeny Medvedev and more minutes for Shayne Gostisbehere. The latter is partially due to the Flyers playing from behind and needing offense last night, but it's nice to see Ghost in bigger roles and his talent for unbalancing the defense and opening up chances for teammates.
Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter@SuperScrub47.
