Flyers Spanked by Hurricanes in Demoralizing 6-4 Loss; Now What?

In Game 13 against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Philadelphia Flyers exhibited the same problems that plagued them in the first 12 games. It led to a beatdown handed to them by one of the best, most well-constructed teams in the NHL.

The 6-4 final score is actually misleading as to how vastly the Flyers were outplayed by the Hurricanes on Tuesday night.

Morgan Frost scored his first goal of the season after swinging and missing on a one-timer, with the puck hitting his skate and bouncing in anyway. Travis Konecny’s second goal of the night came as he tried to reach for a pass and inadvertently poked it through the legs of Hurricanes goalie Pyotr Kochetkov.

But, for a short while, it looked like the Flyers had a chance. Philadelphia won the shots on goal battle in the first period, 10-8, and Konecny’s 5-on-3 power play tally gave the Flyers a lead just under eight minutes into the game.

Then defensive coverage broke down, for the umpteenth time this season, allowing Jackson Blake to park himself in the low slot and score a tap-in against a helpless Aleksei Kolosov. It was all downhill from there.

In the second period, Eric Robinson beat Kolosov over the shoulder for a questionable goal and Jordan Martinook was allowed to cash in on a rebound near the blue paint. An Owen Tippett snipe brought the Flyers within one, and Frost’s lucky bounce tied the game at 3-3 early in the third period.

Jack Roslovic, again in the blue paint, took the lead before Konecny’s lucky bounce again tied things at 4-4. Martin Necas capitalized on an extended shift where the Flyers failed to freeze the puck or clear the zone to take the lead with 31 seconds left, and Seth Jarvis wrapped it up with an empty-net goal to make it 6-4.

Where do the Flyers go from here?

With the loss to the Hurricanes, the Flyers are 31st in the NHL. They’ll fall to 32nd if the Sharks win their game against the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night.

For a team that’s been pretty vehemently anti-tank since the proverbial rebuild started, they are tanking right now without the extra steps.

The Hurricanes out-shot the Flyers 27-6 over the final two periods, a familiar theme throughout the first 13 games of the season. And there have been no signs of improvement there, either.

If the defense and goaltending aren’t carrying the load, which has been far and few between, the game is a loss. The Flyers look far closer to the team that fell on its face in March and April of last season than the one that was pushing for playoff spot for most of last fall and winter.

At the time of this writing, the Flyers have been out-attempted 645-527 this season, which gives them a 44.97% share of shot attempts at 5-on-5. That’s the fourth-worst mark in the league, ahead of only Detroit, Anaheim, and Montreal.

Here are some other Flyers stats at 5-on-5, courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, that summarize the state of the rebuild right now:

Total scoring chances created: 239 (seventh-worst)

Total high-danger chances created: 89 (fifth worst)

Total high-danger goals scored: Seven (three-way tie for last)

Total high-danger goals allowed: 18 (third-most)

Total goals scored: 19 (fifth-worst)

Total goals allowed: 36 (third-most)

Team save percentage: 86.86% (Worst in the NHL)

From Game 1 through Game 13, the Flyers have not improved. Matvei Michkov has played no more than 15:36 in each of his last four games, and he’s the guy selling tickets right now.

If this all persists, where do the Flyers go from here?