Defensive woes lead to reality check in Ottawa for Flyers

Entering a season, one can never fully rule out the possibility that a team could surprise.

No one expected the Vegas Golden Knights to end up in the Stanley Cup Final in their first year of existence, after all. Few predicted that the Seattle Kraken would nab a playoff spot in their second go-around. The New Jersey Devils for years could only rest their laurels on being “winners of the offseason” until last year, when they became winners on the ice, too.

So even though prognosticators all across the hockey world projected the Philadelphia Flyers would finish in the Metropolitan Division basement, it didn’t necessarily mean it was destined to occur. And when the Flyers cruised to an opening night 4-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets — with their top-of-the-lineup not-quite stars leading the way — surely those on the more optimistic side of Philly sports fandom may have let the thought creep into their minds: What if everyone is wrong about the supposedly rebuilding Flyers?

Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators, however, followed the expected script.

It’s not just that the Flyers lost in uncompetitive fashion. The Senators are a team with serious designs on the playoffs, and were clearly amped for their home opener from the opening puck drop. It’s that their biggest on-paper weakness — their blueline corps — was what Ottawa exploited most.

On Thursday, the defensemen more than held their own, in no small part because Travis Sanheim gave the Flyers 26 minutes worth of top pair-level play, showing every bit of his plausible upside.

Two days later, however? He regressed back into the inconsistency that has long prevented him from being more than a solid second-pair blueliner during his career. It’s not that he didn’t have good moments, particularly with the puck in terms of setting up scoring chances. But getting outmuscled by Claude Giroux with less than ten seconds remaining in the second period, leading immediately to a Brady Tkachuk goal? Yep, that’s not going to cut it for a team’s No. 1 blueliner.

Sanheim was far from the only Flyers defenseman to struggle. Rookie Emil Andrae’s casual attempt at puck retrieval in the first period led first to him getting blasted from behind and then to Ottawa’s first of many goals on the day. Marc Staal screened Carter Hart on Jake Sanderson’s second period goal, and then left Tkachuk alone in front to score his second goal of the evening in the third. Nick Seeler may have earned culture points in standing up for young teammate Tyson Foerster, but he was not nearly as successful when it came to helping the Flyers move up ice and get out of their own end (20.23 percent Expected Goals For at even strength).

In truth, that was a problem for the entire blueline corps. Ottawa was forechecking hard from the start of the game, determined to hit the Philadelphia defensemen early and often in their efforts to stymie the Flyers’ breakout. It worked. From the 18:15 mark of the second period until there was just 3:30 left in the stanza, the Flyers couldn’t manage a single shot on goal — nearly a quarter of the hockey game.

Why? It’s hard to get a shot when a team barely ever has the puck. Which is what happens when breakouts prove impossible.

Now, just as Game 1 wasn’t proof that the Flyers are destined to be 2023-24’s NHL Cinderella team, Game 2 isn’t stone-cold evidence that they’re dead in the water due to an underwhelming blueline group. It’s not even a guarantee that the blueline corps will remain underwhelming. The looming return of Rasmus Ristolainen — assuming they get the 2022-23 version — should help them win more puck battles and kill more plays. Egor Zamula — who sat as a healthy scratch today in order to get Andrae in the lineup — is probably the better (or at least less mistake-prone) of the two young blueliners on the roster. Sean Walker has delivered two consecutive solid games, even when paired with Staal, who has struggled in the season’s early going. Cam York flashed his plausible upside with an impressive rush goal, and does appear to have some early chemistry with Sanheim.

But if Thursday was the team’s blueprint for being standings-relevant this season, Saturday was the formula for the season outcome that most expect — a team that gets outshot, outchanced, and outscored on a regular basis because, despite playing a high-effort style, the defense is unable to transition the puck effectively and the forwards aren’t dynamic enough to do it on their own.

The team from Game 1 could surprise. The one that showed up for Game 2 will not.

Assorted observations

2. Carter Hart’s statistics — both traditional and advanced — won’t look pretty after this one, but it’s hard to pin much of this debacle on him, especially after he spent the bulk of the second period singlehandedly keeping the Flyers in the game as he faced wave after wave of the Senators’ attack. The fifth goal he allowed was a microcosm of his entire game — he made a monster save on Tkachuk in front, but with absolutely no back pressure, Tkachuk had more than enough time to corral the rebound and pop that over a prone Hart. Nothing he could have done.

3. Tyson Foerster made his season debut on Saturday, stepping in for Bobby Brink, who was scratched in what appears to be the start of the promised forward rotation. Foerster didn’t exactly excel — in truth, no one did in this one — but he did execute on a few slick passes and even picked up a primary assist on Travis Konecny’s first period goal, shooting for a rebound that his teammate quickly deposited in the net. Aside from one particularly ugly second period shift that saw Foerster pass up a shooting opportunity on the rush, turn the puck over, and then take a slashing penalty while racing back to try and make up for his mistake, Foerster was largely fine, and on the whole, was more noticeable than Brink was in Game 1.

4. Good on Seeler for sticking up for Foerster after he took a borderline hit from Mark Kastelic in the second period. That’s exactly why a team has veterans like Seeler, and he didn’t hesitate to show the kid that he had his back.

5. One of the few bright spots of the day? Travis Konecny, who popped in his third goal of the young season in the first period, and then sent York off to the races for his tally with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tip pass along the boards. Unlike in 2020-21 after his first “breakout,” it does not appear that Konecny will be regressing this time around. He looks like the exactly same player who scored 30 goals last season.

6. The Flyers may have gotten burned on it Saturday to the tune of three power play goals against, but their penalty kill sure seems to be significantly more aggressive in terms of defending entries and directly going after puck carriers as compared to last season. Assistant coach Brad Shaw prefers to coach his units in that way, but after a few months of trying it last season, he was forced to dial back the pressure a bit. At least to start 2023-24, he appears to be giving it another go. Let’s see if it sticks.

7. Sean Couturier may not have been as noticeable in this one compared to Game 1, but he yet again finished with strong even strength advanced stats — the Flyers collected 69.61 percent of the expected goals with Couturier on the ice. Some things never change.

8. Couturier didn’t post the best performance by xG on this day, however. That honor went to… Nicolas Deslauriers? Yup. 94.44 percent, per Evolving-Hockey.

9. It was good to see Morgan Frost finally make his presence felt with a near-goal off a fantastic individual effort late in the third period. He — along with Owen Tippett and Noah Cates — is off to a bit of a slow start, and the Flyers need to get him going.

10. Couturier (20:00) and Cam Atkinson (16:57) were at the top of the Flyers’ forward ice time charts in this one. Tortorella certainly isn’t easing them in.