Flyers flat in home opener, shut out by Canucks originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
After wrapping up a four-game road trip Thursday in Seattle and flying home Friday, the Flyers just didn’t have it for Saturday night’s home opener.
They weren’t sharp and they were outplayed in a 3-0 blanking to the Canucks at the Wells Fargo Center.
“We got enough time to prepare and get ready for this one,” Scott Laughton said, not using the schedule as an excuse. “Especially the home opener, you’ve got a lot of juice. It didn’t translate. It sucks right now, but we’re still early in the year, we still need to work on a ton of things and get better. And we will.”
The Flyers have dropped four of their opening five games for the first time since 2014-15, when they started 1-2-2.
John Tortorella’s club has given up 4.20 goals per game in this 1-3-1 start.
“I thought we’ve had some good minutes in the first five games,” Tortorella said. “We’re going to just coach, they’ll have tomorrow off, we go back Monday to practice and get ready to play our next game. We can’t do anything with what happened the past couple of games here. We’ve just got to try to get better as a team — that’s all you can do.”
The Flyers split their two-game regular-season series with the Canucks (2-1-2). They beat Vancouver a little over a week ago with a 3-2, season-opening shootout decision.
“Obviously it’s a tough turnaround. But tough turnaround or not, it’s our home opener, we’ve got to come out with a lot of energy,” Samuel Ersson said of traveling Friday from the West Coast. “I feel like maybe we didn’t. It’s definitely something we should have done.”
• Making the first home-opening start of his NHL career, Ersson converted 29 saves on 32 shots. The Flyers had breakdowns.
“We came out a little flat, they dictated the play in the first,” Erik Johnson said. “We seemed a little bit disconnected at 5-on-5, in our D-zone especially. No excuses, we have to be better.”
Ersson surrendered two goals in a 50-second span of the second period as the Canucks seized full control. The Flyers, trailing 1-0 before that, made a concerted push to open the middle stanza but came up empty. Vancouver then took the wind out of the Flyers’ sails with those back-to-back goals.
“Ers gives us a chance, Ers played great,” Laughton said. “He plays great every game and gives us a chance. So we’ll get back to the drawing board.”
Ersson, who celebrates his 25th birthday Sunday, beat the Canucks in the season opener with 24 saves.
Vancouver netminder Kevin Lankinen stopped all 26 of the Flyers’ shots for the shutout.
“At 5-on-5, I think we’re not creating enough off the rush,” Sean Couturier said. “In the zone, we’re a lot of one-and-done. Obviously we’ve got to try to find some chemistry and get some lines going, then we can kind of take over time of possession and control more of the play and make it a little easier on ourselves.”
• In his first regular-season game at the Wells Fargo Center, Matvei Michkov created some looks despite going scoreless.
With the Flyers down only 1-0 in the second period, the 19-year-old winger delivered an impressive pass to Johnson right by the crease but the veteran defenseman couldn’t connect on it. If the Flyers tied the game there, the momentum could have shifted before the Canucks could grab it.
“It was absolutely a perfect pass, I’ve just watched the replay a few times,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if it clips the goalie’s pad or not, but right before it’s going to hit my blade, it hops. S–tty luck.”
Michkov also had a nice look to Travis Konecny on a third-period power play. For the first time through five games, the Flyers’ power play didn’t score a goal. It went 0 for 3 after going 5 for 19 over the season-opening road trip.
Jett Luchanko, also playing his first regular-season game in Philadelphia, has gone scoreless through four games with three shots.
• In an interesting move, Tortorella had Couturier open the game on the left wing of the fourth line.
The 31-year-old captain moved back to center around the midway mark of the game as the head coach started mixing and matching. The Flyers had just fallen into their 3-0 hole and were trying to find any kind of a spark.
“We were a little sloppy, a little disjointed,” Tortorella said. “As the second period went on, I think when we moved the lines around a little bit, we started creating some offense. Hit some posts, some almost plays. Played better as the game went on, but we lose it.”
• Nick Seeler missed a fifth straight game after taking a puck to the peroneal nerve in his right leg on Oct. 1. The second-pair defenseman was placed on injured reserve a little over a week ago and has been considered day to day.
The Flyers have missed him. Dating back to last season when he missed time in March, the Flyers have gone 5-8-3 and surrendered 4.07 goals per game and 13 power play goals without Seeler.
“He’s a really good player for us,” Tortorella said. “Energy-wise, penalty killing, just the emotion on the bench. He’s a really good player for us. We miss him.”
• The Flyers are back in action Tuesday when they host the Capitals (6 p.m. ET/ESPN).
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