The Flyers took some steps in the right direction Thursday night, but ultimately only could claim one point against the Calgary Flames before losing in overtime.
As the charts below will show, the Flyers performed much better in terms of possession than Wednesday night and the Oilers' 87-shot barrage. The offense still is not looking particularly dangerous, but Sean Couturier returned to the lineup and the Flyers began to stem their losing streak free fall.
Game Flow
A. 1 – 0, Jooris (Backlund). On-ice PHI: 12, 20, 40, 23, 15
B. 1 – 1, Raffl (Giroux). On-ice PHI: 12, 28, 93, 55, 22
C. 2 – 1, Backlund (Gaudreau, Ramo). On-ice PHI: 14, 17, 15
Forwards
This game was one of the few games this year where the top line did not clearly have the best possession statistics. The top unit, however, did come through with the Flyers only goal. The line generally did well playing against the Flames top defensive pair of Brodie-Giordano, but did have some trouble with the forward line of Hudler-Backlund-Frolik.
Michael Raffl finally scored his first of the season late in the second period. Hopefully this is the beginning of a change in luck for Raffl and Voracek, who are pouring on the shots this season but not scoring.
Couturier had a good night, particularly with his primary linemates Wayne Simmonds and Matt Read. This line really ate up their most common opposition of Bennett-Monahan-Gaudreau, who are three of the most skilled forwards on the Flames roster. If this line can do things like this on a nightly basis, it would be a huge boost for the team. Simmonds led all Flyers with 9 shot attempts and +21 rating in Corsi events.
Lecavalier's line had an absolutely brutal time, even playing against the Flames bottom-6 forwards. The above graphic does not even go low enough to represent the lines ~11 percent Corsi rating. Lecavalier, in fact, did not receive a single shift in the third period, as Sean Couturier took on double shift duties (shown as a 5th line in the chart). This does not portend well for Lecavalier's chances of staying in the lineup for the Flyers next game. Perhaps Gagner will return to center Umberger and Schenn.
Defense
It turned out to be a pretty good night for each of the Flyers defense pairs. There was some variety in matchups, although the most commonly occurring matchup was Streit-Del Zotto against Hudler-Backlund-Frolik. As noted above in their matchup against the Giroux line, that line was the most effective for the Flames last night.
It is also noteworthy that Schultz-Schenn had a much improved performance in this game, and that Manning-Gudas had great success against the Flames' skill line of Bennett-Monahan-Gaudreau. Manning-Gudas combined for 11 shot attempts, while Gudas added 4 more hits as he approaches the league leaders in that category.
Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter @SuperScrub47.
