Defense lets Flyers down
Right about now, the Flyers could use their captain. More defensive miscues led to another loss to the Rangers on Saturday. That makes five on the season. Chris Pronger would have been furious for sure. New York scored three power-play goals for the first time all season, but the man advantage was magnified when the Flyers had multiple breakdowns in coverage in their own end.
"I'm a little disappointed with the effort, actually," defenseman Kimmo Timonen said. "To be honest, I think we had half the guys going, half the guys not. That was my opinion. You might have seen differently, but that's what I saw. It was a big game for us, and I was expecting more."
It's the fifth time this season the Flyers have lost to their division rivals, and they're starting to let it get in their heads.
"I think it is clear that they have our number right now," said Wayne Simmonds, who had a Gordie Howe hat trick in the 5-2 loss. "There's no hiding from it. Obviously we had a good start there and we played well for a little bit, but then the wheels kinda fell off. We took penalties, and they scored two or three power plays, and that's the game."
The Flyers were shorthanded for 10:20 in the game, two of the calls coming in fights where the Flyers were assessed an extra minor penalty. Once the Rangers got going on the power play, they seemed to have an open path to the net, where a back-door pass could easily beat the Flyers defense.
"Our PK's gotta be better," said lead penalty killer Claude Giroux. "We've got to do a better job of helping (Sergei Bobrovsky). I don't know how many goals they got on back-door tap-ins, but we've got to do a better job of killing penalties, and the PK didn't get the job done tonight."
The Rangers are 5 for 20 against the Flyers on the power play this season. That's only a 75 percent efficiency rate vs. their 81.8 percent against the entire league.
"We need to be better there," coach Peter Laviolette said. "There was a rotation in one of them where our defense got caught up the ice behind the goal line pressuring the puck. It's just the way it turned out he was on offense, he ended up staying in and ragging some time down there. As we came back into the neutral zone, we got out of sorts a little bit and they scored a goal there. I'm not going to make any excuses; it needs to be better."
The latest loss to the Rangers seemed to be about special teams. Laviolette and some of his team's leaders said the Flyers thought they played well 5-on-5 until the third period.
But Pronger, who has missed 42 games with a concussion, would not have stood for it.
"Well, obviously he could help, but he's not here, and we all should get by that by now," Kimmo Timonen said. "He's not coming back. Obviously, we'd be more than happy to take him back, but he's not here. Would he say something? I don't know. Who knows?"
The Flyers need a voice to step up because life won't get any easier. They head Sunday to Detroit, where the Red Wings could tie the 1976 Flyers' record of 20 consecutive wins at home.
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