Flyers shoot blanks against Oilers

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It turned into one of those games that just got away. The Edmonton Oilers came out playing with the confidence of a team that's a won its last few games, and caught the Philadelphia Flyers flat-footed for odd-man rushes multiple times in the first minutes. The Flyers survived all those attacks, until one mis-step by Evgeny Medvedev gave Connor McDavid just enough daylight to blow around the outside and create the game's first goal.

The Flyers came back and pushed hard in the second period, but it was a simple offensive zone turnover by Shayne Gostisbehere that gave Taylor Hall a breakaway and the Oilers a 2-0 lead. The Flyers would create lots more chances from that point on, but never could find the net. The Flyers could only shake their head at a final score of 4-0 despite 35 shots on goal.

Given all their chances, the Flyers' lines generally had pretty good possession for this game. The Claude Giroux line generally played to form in the possession department. Brayden Schenn continued to play with confidence and throw everything at the net with nine shot attempts, although only three of those found their way on goal. Giroux also had several good opportunities with six shots on goal, but the bottom line for this group was not pretty. They all finished minus-3, including allowing a shorthanded goal.

Sean Couturier did not enjoy his usual degree of control over the game. He and his linemates had trouble keeping with the speed of the McDavid line. Eventually Dave Hakstol mixed the lines a bit to counter this, with Couturier taking shifts with Scott Laughton and Matt Read. They controlled the McDavid line better, but at that point the Flyers were behind already and neither Read nor Laughton put a shot on goal.

The Pierre-Edouard Bellemare line had a steadier game, playing mostly against bottom Oilers forwards. Likewise, Nick Cousins had prettier numbers in his ice time against the bottom Oilers, until seeing his linemates play with Couturier.

Defense

On defense, Shayne Gostisbehere's night echoed that of the Giroux line. Ghost finished with a nightmare minus-3, and two of those goals were immediate results of turnovers. Partner Andrew MacDonald also had a bad night with his poor possession figures, particularly struggling against Hall and Leon Draisaitl.

Mark Streit and Nick Schultz's numbers also don't look too pretty, which largely came at the hands of the McDavid. Streit could have scored a goal when he shot one off the post on the power play, but it was that kind of night for all the Philadelphia Flyers, who caught iron on three separate occasions.

Lastly, all the best and worst of Radko Gudas and Medvedev was on display. As mentioned above, McDavid victimized Medvedev to open the game's scoring, but then Medvedev went on to have nice numbers the rest of the night. In fact, overall Medvedev's numbers in three minutes against McDavid were vastly superior to Streit's and Schultz's. Gudas, meanwhile, had equally nice numbers, including a remarkable 14 shot attempts. He added six hits to that, and 12 penalty minutes. That's a classic Gudas night for you.

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