By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Devan Dubnyk was at it again. Or maybe it was just the Flyers inconsistent and impotent offense was just being its usual self.
Whatever it was, the Flyers were dealt their fifth shutout loss of the season, falling to the Minnesota Wild again, this time by a score of 3-0.
Here is the Postgame Review.
Postgame Points
- This is now five shutout losses for the Flyers in 18 games. That's one every 3-4 games, and now two in a row.
When the Flyers suffered their first shutout loss in the second game of the season, it was almost a moral victory of sorts, a low-scoring game against Los Angeles on the second end of a back-to-back in a team's season opener. Each one since then, from a 1-0 defeat to Nashville to 3-0 in Chicago to the two in the last two games, has been progressively worse.
This team flat out has a scoring problem. And they are clearly trying too hard to find the perfect play to snap out of a scoring funk. This team is pass happy. They try way too hard to make the set-up perfect and not just try to grind it out for greasy goals.
A greasy, gritty, dirty goal is the way to snap out of this. And all we've seen from two games is long-range, unscreened shots, players passing up the shot for the pass and getting outworked and muscled off the puck before they even get a chance.
This is a team that appeared to be taking strides with their speed. They looked like an improved team over the first few weeks. When you've played six games in November and haven't scored in three of those, you're going to be questioned.
- It wasn't until the third period of this game that the Flyers finally got an odd-man rush. I don't recall a single odd-man rush from Saturday's game and to that point in the game, none from this one either. Of all people to end up with the puck on a breakaway, it was Dale Weise.
I'm not going to crucify Weise as a player. He is what he is, and we all know what he is. I'm going to look at his usage as the problem.
With your team in a scoring drought and lines being reshuffled to try to do something about it, the player who gets promoted is Weise? How does that make any sense? Weise may have been confident in himself upon signing with Philadelphia, but he's not a scorer. He's an ideal fourth-line player and he spent Tuesday's game on the second line.
- Overall this season, the Flyers best line has been their top line of Sean Couturier, Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek. But take them out of the picture, as Minnesota was able to do in the past two games, and the Flyers best counter to that is the fourth line.
Taylor Leier probably had the Flyers best scoring chance in the game and hit the post. The duo of Leier and Scott Laughton is one of the very few on the team that actually displays some sort of chemistry. If anybody needs to be together, even if the lines are shaken up, it's those two. And perhaps they should see the ice a little more quite honestly. They've been better at generating chances that the middle six.
- Lost in all of this has been some really solid play by Brian Elliott. Elliott has started four games this month out of six, including all three shutout losses. Elliott allowed two goals in Chicago and one against Minnesota in each game in the home-and-home.
While allowing a goal just 12 seconds in Tuesday's game was not the right way to start, Elliott really carried the Flyers through the next two and a half periods, making save after save, to keep the margin at one.
In October, Elliott was the question mark, the talking point when wondering where this team needed improvement. In November, every shot against a Flyers goalie has been crucial and Elliott, and Michal Neuvirth for that matter, have not even been close to a problem lately.
- After watching two straight games against the Minnesota Wild, here's what I can assess from that.
The Flyers have a clear problem with scoring consistency. They still have holes on the middle lines. To think a team as inconsistent as this has any shot at a playoff appearance is absolutely foolish.
Now, it's still early to an extent. But the Flyers are now 8-8-2 through 18 games. Last season, they were 8-7-3 through 18 games. It's essentially the exact same team. And guess what? Last November, right around Thanksgiving, the team was infuriating to watch then too. It's almost the exact same pattern. They were terrible in October, so you could almost look at the start as a decent one. November hits and the team has good moments, but is overall too inconsistent to be much of any discussion.
Last season, it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving where the Flyers turned things around with the first win of a 10-game winning streak that ultimately fizzled out in January and February. You can't be forced to chase points late in the season, and while the Flyers haven't really played much within their own conference, these are valuable games to just earn as many points as possible without worrying about repercussions.
As for Minnesota, that's not a strong team on the other side either. The Flyers looked inferior because of Devan Dubnyk. But otherwise, the Wild more or less just sat back and allowed the Flyers the chance to storm the offensive zone only to be stopped at the blue line. They owned the neutral zone and that threw the Flyers off their game, because it was ultimately predictable. But for other teams, that won't be. Not even close.
So we can credit Minnesota all we want for playing a strong neutral-zone game and leaving little space in the offensive zone. Other teams will expose that, and their lack of finishing on their own part will only hurt later in the season.
Ultimately, this was an opportunity lost. The Flyers not only failed to generate much of anything on Saturday, they didn't counter with any form of adjustment. They may have changed lines, but they didn't change the approach, so all Minnesota had to do was counter with the same gameplan and did.
Quotable
"They have good players and they checked hard. At times they were able to do a good job, at other times we were able to generate a lot of good scoring chances. Teams check hard. You have got to work hard to generate good offensive opportunities. We had probably 10 good scoring chances in the second period. You're not going to be able to do that every single period. That's the nature of the beast. Teams are going to check well at times. I give them credit. They checked very well in the third. Our effort level was there, but they did a good job checking." – Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol
Play of the Game
With the Flyers trailing 1-0, Brian Elliott did his part by making a big save on a breakaway for Tyler Ennis.
By the Numbers
The Flyers easily won the shots attempts battle, but it was the location of shots that was the difference. The Flyers had a handful of chances from quality areas around the net, but really peppered Dubnyk with shots from the right point, unscreened. That's not going to do it a majority of the time.
Stat of the Game
Giveaways in the game were three for the Flyers and two for the Wild. On paper, that's not a bad night for either team, but it feels like that couldn't possibly be accurate. Turnovers were plentiful on both sides, to the point where the game was sloppy for both teams.
