Some takeaways from Flyers’ 3-1 loss to New Jersey

The Flyers briefly made it close thanks to a great Jamie Drysdale rush. But they lost their fourth in a row Sunday afternoon, this one a 3-1 loss to New Jersey.

The basics

First period: 11:10 – Cody Glass (Stefan Noesen, Luke Hughes)

Second period: 5:39 – Erik Haula (Johnathan Kovacevic, Brenden Dillon)

Third period: 15:14 – Jamie Drysdale (Travis Konecny, Tyson Foerster), 19:42 – Dawson Mercer (Erik Haula, Ondrej Palat) (ENG) (PPG)

SOG: 24 (PHI) – 23 (NJD)

Some takeaways

Fedotov follies

Ivan Fedotov got the start. And like some games he’s previously played, Fedotov’s game was an adventure. A shot from the neutral zone bounced off the backboards and nearly slithered between Fedotov’s right goalie pad and the post early on. Fedotov managed to eventually get a whistle. He wasn’t as fortunate a few minutes later when a puck bounced off Nick Seeler and went directly to new Devils arrival Cody Glass. Glass beat Fedotov to give the Devils the 1-0 lead.

Fedotov had two shots beat him but not the iron, including a Luke Hughes wrist shot. The tall keeper seemed to be fighting the puck far more than looking comfortable and confident. He also lost his stick in the second period but it didn’t come back to bite him.

Getting hemmed in again

The second period slowly began like a shooting gallery, with the Flyers unable to make crisp clearing plays and left chasing the puck as New Jersey maintained control. Erik Haula ended a 29-game goal drought as he buried a deflected shot beyond Fedotov for a 2-0 lead.

The puck appeared to drop out of the air following a deflection and land almost perfectly on Haula’s stick. For some reason a lot of goalless droughts by opponents have ended the last few seasons against the Flyers. Yet, given how porous the goaltending has been most of the year, players who haven’t scored in ages see Philadelphia as an oasis in what is a goal-free desert.

Deslauriers doesn’t find a dance partner

Prior to the game, Nic Deslauriers was chatting it up with a few Devils, trying to see who would drop the gloves early in the game. Deslauriers was looking for a partner early but nobody on New Jersey took the bait. Deslauriers appeared to be getting an unusual amount of ice time in the opening period. With just over seven minutes of play over two periods, it might have been a wiser option to go 11/7 and keep Andrae in the lineup and scratch Deslauriers.

Drysdale breaks the shutout

The Flyers cut the defecit in half late in the third when Travis Konecny fed a flying Jamie Drysdale at the blueline. Drysdale beat Jake Allen clean and gave Philadelphia a chance, making it 2-1. It also probably helped that with a 2-0 lead, the Devils were very wary of challenging the call for offsides and being wrong, giving the Flyers a man advantage and a chance to tie things up late.

The fourth of the season for Drysdale showed again the speed and talent he has when he has some confidence. Unfortunately a rather dumb penalty by Travis Sanheim put the Flyers in a rather bad situation, trying to tie it up down a man.

Michkov sits … for a little bit

When Deslauriers ends up with 4:22 of ice time in the first, a full two minutes more than Matvei Michkov, either the Mad Russian is hurt or is being taught a lesson. It was the latter. Michkov was on the ice for New Jersey’s first goal and obviously didn’t do something in his own zone concerning coverage. A replay showed him making the wrong turn deep in the offensive zone and not catching up to cover his man.

Travis Konecny replaced Michkov on Couturier’s line, making for an interesting shift or two late in the period. But the shift mirrored the Flyers play in the first: some effort but far less execution. Thankfully the benching was temporary as Michkov saw his regular shift to begin the second period on Couturier’s line. Michkov was on the ice for the second goal but wasn’t to blame. He managed to feed Couturier for a decent chance midway through period two. He played just under five minutes in the second, looking to make some plays but unfortunately with little going in the right direction scoring-wise.

Michkov drew the lone penalty against New Jersey and came back hard to help thwart a Devils shortie in the third. The Flyers got a shot in the crucial two minutes but, as has been nearly all season, no dice.

Ending the misery as quickly as possible

The rather low-event, low-intensity game resulted in three separate parts of the game where the clock ran continuously for five minutes or longer. While the Flyers still are trying to win games, it’s also apparent that mentally they may realize the season is lost and the last 17 tilts are only going to matter in terms of their draft placement.

Philadelphia had a few chances in the third, with a puck bouncing off Hischier and heading towards the net before Allen shut things down. The effort is there, the talent is not, making this game resemble contests where Scott Gordon was the interim head coach back in 2019.

Zamula looked bad, but was he?

Egor Zamula probably needed to sit as much as Emil Andrae did on this afternoon. At least to this writer. Zamula looked like a deer in the headlights in the opening minutes as Nico Hischier made the blueliner look like a very tall orange traffic cone. Zamula hasn’t had a great season overall but he seems to be making a few more glaring miscues down the stretch. A wrister that looked prime for a deflection by Sean Couturier was easily gloved by Devils goalie Jake Allen.

If it wasn’t bad enough, Zamula could’ve slid through the backboards on a chance by Jesper Bratt. Zamula attempted to break up a possible two-on-one laying across the ice but Bratt simply held onto the puck, getting a quality scoring chance that almost got through Fedotov. Zamula had a great chance near the end of the second but didn’t score.

The eye test however was a far different story than what the analytics told. After 40 minutes Zamula was way up in chances for (11-4) for a 73.33 percent, second only to Rasmus Ristolainen at 75 percent. The game ended with Zamula way up 16-4 for a ridiculous 80 percent, just edged out by his partner by 0.65 percent.