Flyers Flash: Take a Breather

Recapping the Flyers' three-game week, plus some takeaways from each game.

In this week’s edition of Flyers Flash, we look at some themes from the Flyers’ 3-2 win against the San Jose Sharks, their 6-2 blowout loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and their goal-fest loss to the Boston Bruins that ended 6-5. What were some overall takeaways?

We look at the Philadelphia Flyers’ concerning play, make some positives out of that, and look at their playoff odds. Also, we inspect the week ahead for the Orange and Black.

Let’s talk about it…

Defensive Play Was Atrocious

With a combined expected goals against on the week (one in which the Flyers faced the Sharks, the league’s second-worst scoring offense) of 12.07, good for 4.02 each game. Considering the Flyers scored 10 goals the entire week, they were lucky to get two points out of the three games in general.

That’s not even taking into account the wonkiness of expected goals at times — the stat sometimes doesn’t even do goaltenders justice for the amount of chances they face. And still, the Flyers had themselves a colossal defensive effort in terms of the stat.

A lot of that had to do with a few players in particular. Veterans Marc Staal and newly acquired Erik Johnson played some of their worst hockey all season, costing the team goals with bad individual efforts.