The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t just lose Saturday afternoon at TD Garden. They looked flat, scattered and overmatched in a 5-1 defeat to the Boston Bruins that pushed their season-opening skid to six straight games.
That’s a staggering number this early in the year, and it puts the Flyers in rare company for all the wrong reasons. It is just the second time in franchise history they have opened a season with six consecutive losses.
The night did offer one bright spot: Porter Martone finally scored. But that was buried under a game that once again exposed the same problems that have followed Philadelphia from the opening puck drop of the season.
The Flyers were already short-handed before things started. Travis Konecny and Cam York were ruled day-to-day shortly before the game, and Rasmus Ristolainen was placed on injured reserve retroactive to October 3. That left the Flyers scrambling to patch together their lineup, with Garrett Wilson and Helge Grans stepping in.
The rearranged group never found much traction. Philadelphia had trouble holding the puck, had even more trouble making simple passes connect, and generally spent too much of the afternoon chasing Boston.
The shot totals told the story in plain language. Boston finished with a 32-15 edge, the fifth time in six games the Flyers were outshot. It was also the fourth time in six games that the opponent at least doubled Philadelphia’s shot total.
Through six games, the Flyers have been outshot 216-121. That minus-95 shot differential is almost impossible to process this early in a season, and it ranks as the fourth-worst through a team’s first six games in NHL history.
The offense hasn’t been any better. Philadelphia has scored just seven goals through those six games, which is the lowest total in franchise history over that span. Put another way: it took the Flyers six games to match the number of goals the Pittsburgh Penguins scored in their season-opening rout of Philadelphia.
For a long stretch, the game looked like it might get away from the Flyers completely. Dan Vladar gave up the opening goal on Pavel Zacha’s wrister at 12:21 of the first period, a shot that looked harmless enough until it slipped through.
After that, though, Vladar settled in and gave the Flyers a chance to hang around. The final score was ugly, but Boston could have easily piled on even more.
Martone’s goal came early in the third period, and it was the kind of finish the Flyers have been waiting to see more of. On the power play, he got room to work, drove in and beat Jeremy Swayman with a clean shot to get Philadelphia on the board.
It didn’t change the result, but it was at least a glimpse of something useful for a team that has been desperate for any kind of spark.
In Other News...
David Jiricek Just Gave The Flyers A Real Reason To Believe
David Jieks latest turn against the Ottawa Senators on Oct. 8 offered the kind of all-around shift the Flyers have been waiting to see more often. He played about 18 minutes, showed up in the shot-creation department and looked comfortable enough to stay involved in key situations at both ends, a noticeable step forward from some of his earlier outings.
Jiek also found his way onto the top power-play unit, where he was part of a sequence that helped set up one of Matvei Michkovs goals. He still finished without a point, but for a Flyers team trying to sort out how much trust to place in him, the performance mattered because it suggested he can do more than just survive on the ice. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Still Searching For First Win As Tocchet Tests New Look In Boston
The Flyers head into TD Garden trying to end the road trip on a positive note and, more important, to get their first win of the season. Philadelphia has spent the week sorting through lineup decisions and special teams looks ahead of a matchup with a Boston club that arrives with a recent victory, and the game offers another chance for Rick Tocchet to keep evaluating how the group fits together in a new setting.
There is still a sense that certain combinations are starting to take hold, even as the results have not followed yet. The projected lineup shows the coaching staff leaning on some familiar pairings and trying to stabilize both ends of the ice, with the next question being whether those choices can finally translate into something tangible in a difficult building against an opponent that already has its footing. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Already Face An Early Test They Cant Afford To Fail
The Flyers first week of the season has already turned into a damage-control exercise, with a cluster of injury updates landing just before their game against Boston. Travis Konecny and Cam York are both day-to-day, Rasmus Ristolainen has been moved to injured reserve retroactive to Oct. 3, and Helge Grans is back from injured reserve, giving Philadelphia at least one bit of roster movement in the right direction.
The bigger concern is the thinning margin for error so early in the schedule. Konecny and York will miss the weekend games, and Nikita Grebenkins back surgery adds a much longer-term absence to the mix, leaving the Flyers to sort through lineup holes before they can even settle in. For a team trying to build some early stability, this is the kind of stretch that can force adjustments fast. [Read more 🡒]