Flyers Defensive Woes Continue to be Magnified
By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
For 40 minutes, the Flyers had played a fairly solid game. Honestly, against a young team whose pride was certainly wounded in a 7-0 loss on Wednesday, another goal for the Orange and Black may have been enough to sink a young Maple Leafs team.
Instead, Toronto reeled off four goals on nine shots in the final 20 minutes, finishing the night with six goals on 23 shots. For Steve Mason, that equated to a .739 save percentage.
For a team that has gotten off to a strong start with scoring and again managed to pull ahead of the opponent and be competitive through two periods, the Flyers came out flatter than a punctured tire in the third period. That was a team that didn't show up, and they paid the price for it.
The Flyers are a young team in their own right — two 19-year-old rookies, a host of second and third-year players taking on greater roles — so Friday night's loss serves as a big lesson.
The kids are still learning, but for the veterans, there really is no excuse anymore. This is a bad defensive team, and it's on the leaders of this team to correct that problem.
The Leafs tied the game early in the third. That goal was not on Mason, who had no chance to see any oncoming shot as Mark Streit and Ivan Provorov collapsed in front of him and allowed three Toronto forwards to join the fray. A distance shot by Martin Marincin went right through the maze of players.
The go-ahead and deciding goal by Zach Hyman was the result of a total discombobulated play in the Flyers zone. It is the result of one team out-skating another.
Matt Read has a loose puck knocked away from him before he can corral it. Nick Schultz was too slow to knock down a pass attempt along the endboards. The puck pinballs around, eventually going to the stick of Auston Matthews, who hit the crossbar with his attempt. By that point, Mason was scrambling, as was the Flyers defense. Hyman put it home to put the Leafs ahead.
Then came the dagger. With the Flyers on a power play with a chance to tie the game, Claude Giroux attempted a cross-ice pass that was knocked out of the zone. Leo Komarov skated right past Shayne Gostisbehere and beat Mason through the five-hole.
The final goal for Toronto is simply one Mason needs to stop, though at the time, the game was very much already over. On the power play, the Flyers were trying to defend and Mitch Marner made a move to the middle of the ice and put a shot toward Mason. It looked harmless enough, right toward the midsection of the Flyers netminder, but squeezed through the blocker side of Mason.
There was a commonality between the four goals. All four were quality chances for the Maple Leafs. All four goals resulted from poor defensive coverage or turnovers. And it's been a trend for the Flyers this season.
In previous games, though, the mistakes were costing the Flyers in the early periods. If the Flyers were to lose in regulation, it would be off of one mistake in the final period, not a collection of mistakes.
"You take a look at tonight and we didn’t give Mase a whole lot of easy saves in there," head coach Dave Hakstol said to Dave Isaac of the Courier Post. "When you look at the third period with some second and third opportunities. To be blunt and honest we gave up four goals in the third period so everyone’s got to do a little bit better."
"Third period wasn’t good," Mason said. "We had an opportunity to win a hockey game and let it get away."
"We played like crap in the third period," Wayne Simmonds, who scored two goals, said. "We talk a lot about it and we didn’t execute anything we talked about."
