Game Thread: Game 44 - Toronto Maple Leafs at Philadelphia Flyers(1-19-16): 7:00pm EST

[Retroram52]

I don't know how the Flyers are going to respond here in the third.

 

[Retroram52]

Now we got a holding call on Bellemare. What the hell is he doing?

 

[Retroram52]

Toronto is killing us on shots on goal. 31-22 Toronto.

 

[Retroram52]

Yea Baby! What a read by Ghost and the goal!!! He is just too fast. Tie game. I sure as hell hope the Flyers decide this in regulation so we don't have to go to OT.

 

[flyersfan4706]

What an elite play by Ghost. Perfectly executed

 

[Retroram52]

After Giroux got mugged we go PP.

 

[Retroram52]

We are two back of Montreal. We need this win.

 

[Retroram52]

Damn, we did nothing on another PP.

 

[Retroram52]

We got about two minutes to score or this is headed to OT which is tenuous at this point.

 

[Retroram52]

Gostisbehere's goal has got these guys taking shots on goal at every chance all of a sudden. B. Schenn was close.

 

[Retroram52]

DAMN IT!!!

 

[Retroram52]

Couturier just stood there after the face-off. Flyers are challenging. 7 seconds left.

 

[Retroram52]

What the hell was Del Zotto doing? Just doesn't make sense.

 

[Retroram52]

That sucked.

 

[flyersfan4706]

Better be a fire under everyone's ass come Thursday.

 

[Retroram52]

Bingo flyersfan4706!

 

[awaz]

can make lots of excuses for this one.. 3rd game in 4 nights, lone game against a bad team in an important stretch (trap game), etc..

long story short, they need to figure out how to win those games. you can't afford to lose to a team full of 3rd liners when you're trying to make a stretch run to make the playoffs.

they need the power play to figure it out. I don't understand how it can go from top 3 PP for 5 years, to the basement in the league when the players stay the same. it seems like PK's are playing them much more aggressively and it's killing them. they need to make a change, and it has to be more than just Jake bringing it in the zone instead of G (though that was definitely a good change). they NEED the PP to score goals. in seasons past, you could almost guarantee a goal on that last PP.

 

[lasgop8]

What the hell was Del Zotto doing? Just doesn't make sense.

The last goal is totally 100 % on Raffl who didn't cover his point man. On a defensive faceoff the point man is Raffl responsibility there. Del Zotto was tying up his man in front. Doesn't matter anyway we got dominated last night and should've lost that game by a lot.

 

[Maverick426h]

These are the losses that are most frustrating to me. Why? We slept through at least 30-35 minutes of that game. That is completely unacceptable on home ice against any team. The Leafs were way hungrier than us from midway through the first until at some point in the third.

That said, some luck and extraordinary plays by Medvedev, Ghost and Hakstol (with the challenge) kept this game even enough that we ended up pissing away a likely two points at the end of the game.

If we do manage to miss the playoffs, we'll look back at games just like this one as to why. The Capitals can pull shit like this and still win games. We're not there yet, so we can't just score an early goal and then mail it in.

It's fucking embarrassing, really. I'm sick and tired of losing to teams that are below .500. Our players need to stop looking at the standings and just play hockey. It's fine for me to look at Toronto and say "This is a team we should beat," but it's not fine for our players to do that.

Very few teams in the current Nhl can win games based solely on speed, skill, talent and so on. If the effort and intensity are not there for the better team, that team will usually go down, no matter who they are playing. You have to come out every single night and give them hell.

This was a trap game without question, but that's no excuse. I predict that we're going to see a very hungry group for us tomorrow.

 

[lasgop8]

These are the losses that are most frustrating to me. Why? We slept through at least 30-35 minutes of that game. That is completely unacceptable on home ice against any team. The Leafs were way hungrier than us from midway through the first until at some point in the third.

That said, some luck and extraordinary plays by Medvedev, Ghost and Hakstol (with the challenge) kept this game even enough that we ended up pissing away a likely two points at the end of the game.

If we do manage to miss the playoffs, we'll look back at games just like this one as to why. The Capitals can pull shit like this and still win games. We're not there yet, so we can't just score an early goal and then mail it in.

It's fucking embarrassing, really. I'm sick and tired of losing to teams that are below .500. Our players need to stop looking at the standings and just play hockey. It's fine for me to look at Toronto and say "This is a team we should beat," but it's not fine for our players to do that.

Very few teams in the current Nhl can win games based solely on speed, skill, talent and so on. If the effort and intensity are not there for the better team, that team will usually go down, no matter who they are playing. You have to come out every single night and give them hell.

This was a trap game without question, but that's no excuse. I predict that we're going to see a very hungry group for us tomorrow.

How we respond to this loss will be most interesting to me. Last few seasons we went on a couple game losing streak after a game like this. Hopefully this is a new regime with Hakstol and we put it behind us and get back on track.