Saturday's Stadium Series loss wasn't an embarrassing one for Flyers -- but it was an opportunity missed

John Tortorella scoffed at the idea that the Philadelphia Flyers’ 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night was a missed opportunity that could ultimately prove devastating to their aim of making the playoffs.

In fact, he didn’t even let the question be finished.

“There’s 20-plus games left,” he interjected. “We’re not going to get into counting points, and four-point games and all that. We don’t operate like that. We just get ready for our next game.”

And Tortorella wasn’t inherently wrong — at least for the most part. Saturday night’s defeat was just one loss. The Flyers remain very much in control of their own destiny. They even have one more game left this season against this very same Devils club, a chance to exact revenge and take care of them once and for all.

“We’re not gonna do the math right now with 25, 27 games left. We just don’t operate that way,” he added.

But outsiders can do the math. And the math says that this was indeed a serious missed opportunity for the Flyers, a chance for them to make life very tough for the Devils the rest of the way — a Devils club that easily could end up battling with the Flyers for one of the final Eastern Conference playoff spots during the last few games of the season.

Saturday, of course, wasn’t merely an average regular season game. It was a Stadium Series game, an outdoor spectacle that basically serves as part hockey celebration and part commercial for casual fans. The night had its fair share of pageantry, starting with the Flyers’ decision to show up to the game in matching sweatsuits, a nod to Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa movie character. There was a fake park at ice level, complete with signs, foliage and dog walkers. Gritty replicated his “streaking” stunt from the 2019 outdoor game in Philadelphia. The Jonas Brothers performed not one but two concerts. The Gaslight Anthem — who wrote the Devils’ goal song, ‘Howl’ — were there to play it live every time New Jersey scored. And finally, a grand total of 70,328 people were in attendance.

In other words, outdoor games are an experience. But with that experience comes unique gameplay elements — elements that can make a win more difficult as compared to a normal game in an indoor arena. It’s colder than usual (sub 20-degree wind chill in North Jersey on Saturday). The ice quality is difficult to predict. And it just feels like a different game, due to its the special nature.

The Flyers just seemed to have more trouble dealing with it all than did the Devils.

Owen Tippett disagreed after the game that Nico Hischier’s goal just 32 seconds into the game was the result of the team being too amped up as a result of the atmosphere, and it’s fair to note that the puck did take an unexpected bounce off an official’s skate before making its way to Hischier. It’s also true, however, that the Flyers players all allowed Hischier to get behind them, so excited they seemed to be that they had kicked off the game with heavy offensive zone pressure.

“We were a little overaggressive the first shift, give up a breakaway goal,” Tortorella admitted.

Philadelphia also made a conscious adjustment to their style of play, unleashing a barrage of shot attempts in hopes of taking advantage of the odd bounces that can arise in an outdoor game; Travis Sanheim confirmed as much after the game. But 27 shot attempts at 5-on-5 during the first 20 minutes didn’t product a single goal, and the Flyers’ offense didn’t begin to bear real fruit until they finally began to get back to their bread-and-butter in the second period — their quick-strike transition game. By then, they were already behind and would never fully recover.

But while the Flyers’ shoot-from-anywhere strategy proved relatively ineffective in the face of strong work by Devils netminder Nico Daws, Sam Ersson struggled to match the work of his counterpart. Outdoor games are notoriously difficult for goalies, but both he and Daws faced the same elements. Ersson just didn’t have his A-game, and it’s easy to wonder if his issues with rebound control and puck tracking were at least in part due to the unfamiliar environment — even if Ersson characteristically refused to point to the circumstances as a potential excuse for his underwhelming performance.

“I think the ice was okay. I can’t really put any of the goals that went in on me on tough bounces,” he said. “It was more how I should have handled situations, and put away the rebounds.”

In the end, the Flyers’ biggest issue was that of execution. Ersson’s play was one factor, but certainly not the only one. In fact, Tortorella made a point to defend Ersson, pointing instead to the fact that the club squandered all the momentum it had in the second period after Owen Tippett’s first goal, when the Flyers were all over the Devils and appeared poised to seize control with the score 2-1. Instead, Travis Konecny and Nick Seeler both took penalties, New Jersey settled down, and then responded with two quick goals near the end of the second period that put the game out of reach.

“We had ‘em,” Tortorella lamented. “We were checking forward, we were getting up with chances. We needed one more. We just kinda lost ourselves at the end of the period.”

Konecny’s penalty in particular was an unnecessary, retaliatory infraction that ended a Flyers power play after just 39 seconds. But he wasn’t the only player to make a big mistake. Ersson’s rebound control issues on the night popped up repeatedly, and coverage lapses from Morgan Frost and Cam Atkinson on two of those big rebounds ensured that Ersson wouldn’t be able to survive his lack of ideal sharpness.

“Yeah, we made some mistakes,” Tortorella said. “We had some coverage problems. We certainly weren’t at our best.”

One underwhelming game certainly doesn’t mean a full-fledged collapse is forthcoming, of course. The Flyers are still five points up on the Devils, and continue to have better playoff odds than their division rivals, even if the gap is now a mere 13 percentage points per HockeyViz.com. They outshot the Devils in this one (45 – 37) and basically matched them in scoring chances as well. Owen Tippett flashed his high-end upside with two sniper-style goals from the slot. The penalty kill remained its stellar self, going 5-for-5 despite the unique environment. And the Flyers never gave up, cutting the deficit back to two goals late in the third period and very nearly scoring on an open net to turn it into a one-goal game.

This wasn’t an embarrassing loss, and given time, the Flyers players who participated will likely look back on the past two days with fondness.

“We’re angry right now, but we’ll look back and all enjoy the experience,” Konecny acknowledged after the game.

But in the here and now, they did blow a chance to make life very difficult for their Metropolitan Division rivals with less than two months remaining in the season. Fair or not, Ersson’s underwhelming showing serves as a reminder that the Flyers are depending upon a rookie netminder to carry the bulk of the load in the midst of a tight playoff race. And the loss also risks waking up the sleeping giant that is the Devils, both in terms of the quality of their play and their front office’s plans at the looming trade deadline.

This was an opportunity for the Flyers to create some breathing room between them and New Jersey. Instead, it stands as a sign that this race is likely to go down to the wire.

Perhaps in a few months, Saturday’s Stadium Series defeat will be remembered mostly for the spectacle, because the outcome was a mere blip en route to an unexpected playoff appearance. That’s the way the players positioned it after the final buzzer, after all.

“So we lose a game today,” Ersson said. “That’s what it is – it’s a loss. We know it’s gonna happen. We have to deal with it, and move on, and keep building on what we’ve been building up here after the break.”

In the moment, however, it does feel like more than a loss. It feels like an opportunity wasted.