Ducks stifle Flyers
Game Events
[Mouse-over image for goal details}
Forwards
Much of the Corsi charts will look pretty good for the Philadelphia Flyers for this game, but what those 5v5 Corsi charts leave out is all the Anaheim Ducks shot attempts on the power play, and that 25 shot attempts by the Flyers that were blocked by the Ducks. When you get down to actual shots on goal, the Flyers were dominated for most of the first period.
The Claude Giroux line had decent numbers, but again you have to consider that of Giroux's nine shot attempts, only 3 made it to goal. The Flyers also separated Giroux and Jakub Voracek in the third period to get one of them away from Ryan Kesler, but with little reward. Voracek also took a dumb penalty to negate half of a key four-minute power play at the end of the second period.
The Sam Gagner line had a little bit more success against the Ryan Getzlaf line, although no goals. It will be interesting to see how long Dave Hakstol sticks with this line and keeps Gagner and Nick Cousins in the lineup. I don't have many complaints.
It was back down to low ice time for the Scott Laughton line after a good performance last game. They had nearly the same ice time against the Getzlaf line as the Pierre-Edouard Bellemare line, but were much more successful in terms of possession.
Defense
Shayne Gostisbehere continued to excel in his expanded role on the team. He stands out on the chart above, and also extended his point streak with another assist. He and Michael Del Zotto took most of their shifts against the Kesler line, but in limited time against Getzlaf went 5-0 in shot attempts.
The rest of the defense corps pretty much split duty in terms of deployment and results. Brandon Manning was in for Evgeny Medvedev, and Manning showed a bit more spunk in a second period fight. Manning and Radko Gudas' numbers also may not be as good as appears, considering 8 of 9 combined shot attempts by the pair were blocked.
Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter@SuperScrub47.
