The Philadelphia Flyers hosted the Tampa Bay Lightning at Wells Fargo Center on Sunday evening looking to end their seven-game losing streak. The Flyers suffered three consecutive three-goal losses before this and were looking to right the ship.
Unfortunately, as has been the trend, they disappointed and were promptly steamrolled 7-1 by the Lightning, even without Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov in their lineup.
FIRST PERIOD
The Flyers were able to keep the usually high-octane Lightning at bay for the first part of the game. Philadelphia actually seemed be showing some compete early on, but couldn’t find the scoreboard against Tampa Bay and goaltender Brian Elliott, who was playing in his first game at Wells Fargo Center since signing with the Lightning in the offseason.
After some great saves by Carter Hart earlier, he couldn’t bail his team out of letting the first goal up as Ryan McDonagh nabbed the icebreaker at 8:24. McDonagh entered the zone with Steven Stamkos, and he passed the puck to Stamkos who fired a wrister at Hart. Hart made the initial save, but McDonagh was on the doorstep for the rebound goal to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead.
Tampa Bay would immediately follow up with another tally just one minute later. McDonagh unloaded a one-timer from the point that went wide, but Corey Perry was behind the net to retrieve the loose puck. Perry skated around to the front of the net untouched and put home a wraparound goal to make it 2-0 in favor of the Bolts.
Lucikly the period would end at just 2-0. The Flyers were actually outshooting the Lightning 14-9 going into the first intermission, but Tampa Bay turned on the jets and were the more dominant team in the latter half of the frame after scoring twice.
SECOND PERIOD
Philadelphia, instead of coming out with more aggression and playing with urgency, did the complete opposite and let the Lightning take a 3-0 lead not even three minutes into the period.
Taylor Raddysh received a pass from Victor Hedman on the rush and Raddysh unleashed a slap shot that beat Hart high to the blocker to give the Lightning a three goal advantage.
Having a goal scored on them didn’t shake the cobwebs either, as Boris Katchouk was the next recipient of a Tampa Bay marker. Hedman sent a shot on goal and Hart stopped it, but couldn’t track where the puck laid afterwards. The puck was next to his right foot, and Katchouk spotted it and tapped home an easy rebound for his first NHL goal and a 4-0 Lightning lead.
After a disastrous start to the period, Philadelphia would end up getting the game’s first power play at 7:24. Zach Bogosian was sent to the box for holding against Travis Konecny, and the Flyers would set up the man advantage.
Of course, nothing good happens for this team, and Carter Hart decided to play the puck as Mathieu Joseph was skating into the zone to also get the puck. Hart got there first and sent the puck up the boards, but not past Joseph. The Lightning forward sent home a slow and sad shot into a gaping net for a 5-0 lead while shorthanded.
That was the end of Hart’s night as Alain Vigneault replaced him with Martin Jones after that.
The Lightning would earn their first power play shortly after at 9:55 after Oskar Lindblom slashed Alex Killorn, and the Flyers would head to the penalty kill. Luckily, they’d kill off Lindblom’s minor and keep the game at 5-0.
Jan Rutta would be called for hooking against Claude Giroux at 14:31, but the Flyers power play didn’t score again. Totally surprising, right?
The second period would thankfully end, with Tampa Bay holding on to a commanding five goal lead after forty minutes. The shots were 24-18 in favor of the Flyers, but the goals were not coming for them and it was another night of poor offensive production.
THIRD PERIOD
The final period was more of the same story as the previous one. A quick Tampa Bay start that led to an early goal occurred again, this time at 5:29. Corey Perry danced around Scott Laughton after receiving a pass from Hedman and found Maroon wide open for a cross-crease tap-in through Jones for a 6-0 lead.
The Flyers did show some fight and got into some rough stuff not long after the goal. Travis Konecny was skating after a puck that was behind the Tampa Bay net, and Brian Elliott was trying to play it as well. Konecny accidentally knocked Elliott down, and Cal Foote immediately became enraged and went after Konecny. A crowd formed and it was Foote and Anthony Cirelli against Konecny and Travis Sanheim. Sanheim took his 6’3”, 183 pound frame against Cirelli and pinned him to the ice.
Foote would earn a double minor for roughing out of the scrum, while the other three players earned just single minors. As a result, Philadelphia would get their third power play of the night, and for once they actually made good on it, not that it mattered much considering the score.
Cam Atkinson would end his eight-game goalless drought with a goal that redirected off the top of his skate from a Giroux shot and made it through Elliott to make it 6-1. It was Philadelphia’s first power play tally since November 20th against Boston, a span of six games.
That was all the goal production that Philadelphia could muster in this one, but Tampa Bay sure wasn’t done scoring yet. After a Nick Seeler holding penalty with 7:30 remaining in the period, Corey Perry tipped home his second goal of the game on the man advantage. McDonagh loaded up and fired a shot from the top of the high slot, and Perry deflected it past Martin Jones to put a seventh goal on the scoreboard for the Lightning.
That was all she wrote for this one as the Philadelphia Flyers were manhandled by the Tampa Bay Lightning by a 7-1 score for their eighth consecutive loss now. This is the longest losing streak the Flyers have endured since the 2018-19 season during Scott Gordon’s run as interim head coach. They continue to look lifeless, uninspired, and just flat out despicable as they began probably their most important stretch of hockey this season.
UP NEXT…
The Flyers will host the Colorado Avalanche tomorrow night at Wells Fargo Center for the second leg of this back-to-back set before heading on a three-game road trip that begins Wednesday in New Jersey. The way things are going for this team, this losing streak could hit double digits and heads could roll in a hurry.
