The city of brotherly love was the setting, but the Avalanche didn’t really harness Rocky Balboa’s energy, and we didn’t get a hard-work montage leading to ultimate victory.
Instead, the Flyers played stingily behind a strong netminding performance, and a disjointed Avalanche club dropped a game that looked like a scheduled win. The Flyers had just one win before tonight.
First Period
Unfortunately, the Avalanche are turning slow starts into a bad habit;
for the second game in a row, the opposition seemed to bring more effort and focus. Just like their last time out against Pittsburgh, the Avalanche conceded the first goal of the evening to Matvei Michkov off a Trevor Zegras attempt at 07:41.
It just felt like the Avalanche hadn’t woken up, and things would only get worse in the middle frame.
Second Period
Michkov scored again to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead and put himself on the cusp of a hat trick. At 12:21, Matvei took a drop pass from Zegras, held the puck, and rounded the net. As he finally made a full circle back to the point, he fired a shot that was going wide but glanced in behind Blackwood.
Martin Necas got back at Philly with a seeing-eye wrist shot just after a Colorado Avalanche power play expired. Necas’ 5th of the season came on a helper from Artturi Lehkonen, who pushed his point streak to four games at 17:52.
Third Period
The Avalanche had one more twenty-minute frame to clean up their bad start, but instead let Noel Acciari give the Flyers a 3-1 lead at 06:34 in the final frame.
Rookie forward T.J. Hughes got a few looks throughout the night and on the power play, but his net-crashing ability ultimately earned him his second NHL goal. Hughes has two goals in his last two games and logged top-six minutes (16:54 TOI) this evening.
The Flyers won 3-2, with Colorado holding Philly in their own end but unable to cash in with the net empty and an extra attacker as time expired.
Takeaways
This game was a serious dud for the Colorado Avalanche, who should have dominated given the talent imbalance. It’s the NHL, and every team can be competitive on any given night, but from my vantage, this was more about Colorado’s problems than the Flyers putting on a show. Jared Bednar felt the same way, calling it “sluggish and sloppy,” according to Corey Masisak of the Denver Post.
You can’t expect to win many games with 16 giveaways on the stat sheet.
Netminder Mackenzie Blackwood was the best Avalanche player this evening. Without a few right-pad and blocker saves, this could have been even uglier. In my opinion, Blackwood provided in the “needed save” department.
I’m not sure what to make of the line combinations and usage in a game like this, but it felt like either Nathan MacKinnon was being punished or T.J. Hughes and Jaden Schwartz were being rewarded. The three players spent time on the same line in a look I hadn’t seen coming into the evening. I’m not saying Hughes and Schwartz aren’t useful linemates, but MacKinnon looked off his game.
Up Next
Colorado’s road trip continues as they head to New Jersey to take on the Devils tomorrow night. Yeah, that’s right, another back-to-back.
Let us know what you thought of tonight’s game in the comments!
