Philadelphia Flyers
There are no moral victories when it comes to playoff races or trying to contend at this point in a season. You either find a way to win or you don’t and that single point still involves a point lost. That said, there are plenty of moral victories you can find in games like this when you are trying to determine what you have and what you need for the future. The Flyers got lessons in both on Saturday.
A pair of goals by Claude Giroux erased a two-goal deficit and Carter Hart was having an outstanding game. Unfortunately, the Islanders got the extra point in the shootout, defeating the Flyers, 3-2, on Saturday night.
The Flyers are about to embark on another rough month, facing numerous contenders and not having a lot of time off between games. It all starts with Saturday night’s game against the New York Islanders.
Wednesday night’s game in Buffalo was the fourth time this season the Flyers were handed a 6-1 defeat. This one was by far the worst though, because this one helped the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL’s last-place team in the standings, snap an 18-game winless streak. It was a new low for the Flyers, and a fitting way to cap off a month that progressively got worse.
How did the Flyers cap off this month? Quite possibly in the most fitting way, losing to a team that couldn’t win a game all month long, the only team that seemed to be finding a way to lose games more than the Flyers themselves. It wasn’t even a close loss, it was another embarrassment. The Buffalo Sabres snapped an 18-game winless streak as the Flyers closed March with a 6-1 defeat on Wednesday night.
2019 first-round pick Cam York has officially turned professional, signing a three-year entry-level deal that will begin this season.
The Flyers face the Sabres again on Wednesday night. The Flyers are continue to try to keep their dimming playoff hopes alive, while the Sabres look to avoid carrying their winless streak to 19 games.
The Flyers may be sitting fifth in the East, three points out of a playoffs, still very much mathematically alive. But their defense is in shambles. Almost every core player that was expected to produce on the higher end offensively has shown struggles. The goaltending has been questioned. To put it simply, the Flyers are a mess right now, and it’s become clear that the current system is just not working.
Times like these leave the masses calling for action of any kind. You certainly got that on Tuesday from the Flyers. Less than 24 hours after completing a comeback win over the Buffalo Sabres, 4-3, in overtime, the Flyers made an interesting move, placing defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere on waivers.
Monday’s game was a battle royale of mediocrity. This was a game that probably played out exactly as it should have in both result and process. Yes, the Flyers are a better team than the Sabres. The standings certainly reflect that. But for 40 minutes, they weren’t close to that, so much so that they not only once again dug a hole to the worst team in the league, requiring another frantic third-period rally, but they also had to shorten the bench to do it.
