On March 28, the Philadelphia Flyers fell to the Montreal Canadiens in a decisive 4-1 loss. The Flyers had a lot of chances, but their overall uninspired play and lack of killer instinct cost them in the end. Falling to a 36-28-10 record on the season, they’ll have to pull it together a bit if they want to make the playoffs with just eight contests remaining on their schedule. What were some takeaways from this one?
Flyers Showed Up in the Third, Goals Did Not
After two pretty bad periods from the Flyers, they actually played well enough to win in the third. Down 2-0 after one and the same score after the second, Philadelphia pushed hard in the third but couldn’t buy a goal. For starters, they had two tallies that were disallowed — one being because of a kick, the other being offside.
By the time they did finally score, it was with such little time that it only ruined the shutout of Cayden Primeau, who just so happens to be the son of former Flyer captain Keith Primeau. He played his heart out against his father’s former team, but the Flyers did a lot to help him — they simply couldn’t take advantage of their grade-A chances.
When the Flyers had opportunities, they let them get away — that’s not even including the two goals that were disallowed. Travis Konecny missed a wide-open net on the power play, Morgan Frost made a few great plays in front of the Canadiens’ net but nobody could finish, and any power play chances Philadelphia had went nowhere. All of this happened in the third period alone, so it shows how different the game could have gone. Sloppiness was their biggest enemy.
York is Being Heavily Utilized
In some better news, Cam York has played a ludicrous amount of ice time recently, but he has handled it well. In March, he is averaging over 25 minutes per game, which is high-end first-pairing ice time. In this one, he was out there for 28 minutes and was one of the Flyers’ best players all night long.
The Canadiens aren’t necessarily known for their firepower, sitting at just 28-32-12 on the season, but they do have some scary players. Their top line with Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and Juraj Slafkovsky is especially good, but that changed in this one. At even strength, York had a 66.9 expected goals percentage (xGF%), 66.6 high-danger chances percentage (HDCF%), 83.3 scoring chances percentage (SCF%), and an 81.4 Corsi percentage (CF%) against the three combined. They were completely neutralized.
Head coach John Tortorella showing his confidence in York is a great sign. His average ice time ranks second in the NHL in the month of March, but his advanced stats have been terrific. Among the 106 defenders with 200 or more minutes of ice time in that span, he ranks 27th in xGF%, 29th in HDCF%, 31st in SCF%, and 46th in CF%.
York is more than comfortable with first-pairing minutes and tough competition, and that says a lot about him as a player. If he is already a good first-pairing player despite his young age, the future could be even brighter for him.
Ersson Has to Rest
As good as starting goaltender Sam Ersson has been for the Flyers, he has been playing far too much. He allowed two goals on 15 shots in this one, which isn’t all that bad, but he has noticeably lost a step recently in terms of his big-save gene. He has kept the Flyers in hockey games over the course of the season with his ability to steal points. That has been immensely valuable to the Flyers’ playoff hunt.
But Ersson hasn’t been making those huge saves recently, and that likely has something to do with his usage. He has started 23 of the Flyers’ last 28 contests, which would be a pace of 67 starts for a full season. Since 2017-18, only Juuse Saros, Connor Hellebuyck, Cam Talbot, and Devan Dubnyk have reached that number — none of them surpassed it. That is an absurd number of starts in such a short span, especially for a rookie who was meant to be the backup to start the 2023-24 season. Instead, he has taken on a crazy workload. It cannot continue.
The Flyers have felt compelled to start Ersson a lot due to their poor backup goaltending, with both of those netminders having a combined .840 save percentage (SV%) this season. Thankfully, Russian “prospect” Ivan Fedotov was let go from his Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) team and should be joining the Flyers shortly. Though 27, he hasn’t played a single game in North America due to some crazy circumstances.
Finally, though, the Flyers have access to Fedotov. He could slot in and take some of the heat off of Ersson for the last stretch of the season. He doesn’t have to play a lot, he just has to play at some point — Ersson’s workload has to cool off.
Next up, the Flyers will take on the 21-47-5 Chicago Blackhawks on March 30 at Wells Fargo Center to try and sweep their season series. For the Orange and Black, this is a game they would really like to win. With both the Washington Capitals and Detroit Red Wings, two teams chasing Philadelphia for their playoff spot, losing in a thorough fashion, the Flyers caught a break. Next time, they might not get so lucky. Beating the lowly Blackhawks is a must at this stage.
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