The Philadelphia Flyers got off to a decent start against the New York Islanders. They scored a quick power play goal, but the momentum began to slip away. A bad short-handed goal against at the end of the first period changed the game, and the Flyers hardly threatened the rest of the game. 

The Flyers may lament that the Islanders game-winning goal in the second period was a bit fluky, but they offered so little offense it's hard to make much of case. This was the fourth consecutive game the Flyers went scoreless at even strength.

The Flyers were particularly disappointing in the third period. Down a goal, you expect a team to push hard to come back.  Instead, the Flyers were outshot 15-4. That is embarrassing. After an empty-net goal, it goes down in the books as a 3-1 loss.

Game Flow

Goals:

1 – 0. PPG, Giroux (Gostisbehere, Voracek). PHI on-ice: 10, 17, 28, 93, 53

1 – 1. SHG, Cizikas (Clutterbuck). PHI on-ice: 10, 17, 28, 93, 53

1 – 2. Okposo (Tavares). PHI on-ice: 10, 12, 28, 22, 55

1 – 3. EN, Nielsen (Lee, Hamonic). PHI on-ice: 14, 17, 24, 28, 93, 53

Forwards

It's time to start asking serious questions about the Flyers' current line arrangements. The best thing that can be said is that the Couturier line continues to put up good possession stats. They did exceptionally well against the Tavares line (approximately 75% Corsi). The other side of the coin is that they remain in a terrible scoring slump.

The other Flyers' lines accomplished little. Giroux was shut down by the Nielsen line and the Hamonic-Leddy pair. Additionally, Voracek had one of his worst statistical games of the season.

Thus far, the VandeVelde-Bellemare-Voracek has been terrible. With the Flyers so desperate for offense, it baffles to see a talent like Voracek skating with fringe NHL talents, seeing zero offensive zone faceoffs, and ninth amongst the forwards for 5v5 ice time.

Defense

Del Zotto-Gudas had very good numbers against the Tavares line, but some bad shifts against the Nielsen line. While Gostisbehere continues to spark the offense, the limits of the Manning-Ghost pair at 5v5 means the Medvedev watch will continue.

Highlights

Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter@SuperScrub47.