Philadelphia Flyers Power Play: Where Have You Gone?

The Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night 3-2, and the power-play unit struggled to find the back of the net again.  Including Thursday's game, the Flyers are 2-27 on the power-play this year and have looked terrible over the first six games. 

Against the Ducks, the power-play unit looked better by gaining the offensive zone, setting up plays and even sending quality shots to the net.  They just can’t seem to find the twine.  The Flyers took 42 shots and could only put two past career backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney.

“We got a lot of shots but we have to put them in,” Philadelphia Flyers forward Claude Giroux said after the loss on Thursday.

The Flyers are in the midst of their longest homestand of the season (five in a row) and only have one game left Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Wells Fargo Center. 

The Flyers have only won one game during this homestand, and they better hope this doesn’t come back to bite them in the long run.  These are the kind of points that make end of the season situations, like the one the Flyers put themselves in last year trying to get into the playoffs in the last game of the season, easier to handle.

Sergei Bobrovsky got the nod in net for the second consecutive game and didn’t seize the opportunity to become the No. 1 until Leighton returns.  Bobrovsky stopped 19-of-22 shots, but the Ducks scored two goals close to the net, including the game-winning goal from Duck’s forward Ryan Getzlaf.

Another problem that I see with the Flyers early on in the season is the play of defenseman Chris Pronger.  Pronger missed almost all of the training camp recovering from offseason knee surgery, and the effects are evident in his play. 

Teemu Selanne caught him flatfooted in the first period and scooted by him to set up Jason Blake for the Ducks second goal.

The biggest positive that came out of this game was the lack of penalties taken by the Flyers.  It became almost an epidemic with the team early in the season, taking a lot of bad penalties and putting the team behind the eight ball. 

The Flyers took four penalties Thursday, but anything was better than the 11 they took last Saturday.

The team needs to get to practice on Friday and see if they can work out something in the offensive zone if they don’t want this season to start off like the one before.   The Flyers have to get on a roll now to make the end of the season less stressful. 

The Philadelphia Flyers play the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night at 7 pm E/T and will be CBC Hockey Night in Canada Saturday night game.  If the Flyers want to win, they have to score early and set the tone for the game, and they have to pay hard for 60 minutes. 

Let’s see what Don Cherry says about the Flyers this time!

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