Postgame 5: Comeback Bid Falls short

The Philadelphia Flyers got anything but the step-up performance they needed against the surging Washington Capitals on Thursday evening at the Wells Fargo Center. Philly trailed for most of the game, came up short on a third period comeback bid and went down to a 5-3 defeat.

In a loosely played first period, Alex Ovechkin (9th goal of the season) opened the scoring off a Flyers' turnover. Travis Konecny (power play, 7th) briefly tied the game but another Flyers turnover resulted in a Conor Sheary (6th) counter-attacking goal less than two minutes later. The only scoring in the second period came from Washington as John Carlson (6th) joined a counterattack and scored before Nic Dowd (4th) parlayed a lucky bounce into a 4-1 Washington lead.
Ivan Provorov (3rd) scored a 4-on-4 goal early in the third period before Scott Laughton (7th) got the team back within 4-3. Philly got little sustained pressure thereafter before Dowd (5th of the season, 2nd of the game) scored a long-distance empty net goal.
Carlson played an excellent all-around game; not just offensively. T.J. Oshie was also very good for Washington.
Brian Elliott stopped 17 of 21 shots in a losing cause. Ilya Samsonov made 30 saves on 33 shots. The Flyers went 1-for-2 on the power play, and 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Washington dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen, after third-line center Lars Eller was a late scratch.However, seventh defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler, never saw the ice until the game's final shift.
TURNING POINT
Giving a goal right back after Konecny tied the score at 1-1 -- an all-too-common situation for the Flyers this season -- put them right back to chasing the game. Philly never quite caught up the rest of the way.
MELTZER'S TAKE
1) Things could have been worse for the Flyers in an often sloppy, turnover-filled opening period that, at one point, saw head coach Alain Vigneault animatedly lacing into his team on the bench. The Capitals were aggressive in their puck pursuit and the Flyers didn't help their own cause with seven unforced turnovers. At 8:37, an Elliott chip pass off the boards eluded Ivan Provorov and went right to the deadly Ovechkin who fired the puck off the post and in. Elliott also made two tough stops on Ovechkin during the first period: a power play near slam dunk that Elliott got with his pad and glove and a juicy rebound. Philly finally got some puck possession going after having trouble getting through the neutral zone in the first six minutes but remained turnover prone.
The Flyers got the goal back on their first power play. Kevin Hayes drew iron on a shot attempt. Shayne Gostisbehere fired a puck at the net and Hayes deftly steered the loose puck to Konecny in the slot, who celebrated his 24th birthday with a goal at 11:14. Unfortunately, the Flyers' season-long issues with getting scored on shortly after they get a goal continued. Nicolas Aube-Kubel made an ill-advised pass to Travis Sanheim high in the offensive zone. Daniel Sprong then found Conor Sheary behind Sanheim, and Sheary went in to beat Elliott through the five-hole for a 2-1 Caps lead at 13:10.

2) Looking to give his team a spark, Andy Andreoff dropped the gloves with Garnet Hathaway at 17:15. The Flyers had a decent close to the period before the first intermission. Shots in the first period were 11-10 in the Flyers' favor (attempts 19-15 in Philly's favor).
Tweet from @NHLFlyers: ding. ding. 🥊#AnytimeAnywhere | #WSHvsPHI pic.twitter.com/wD7PKv6Ic7
3) Shots in the second period were only 5-5 before the early end of the frame but two of them ended up in the Flyers' net. Philly actually had a decent start to the period with some extended forechecking time until it was short-circuited by a Konecny tripping penalty in the offensive zone. The Flyers survived the penalty despite some crisp puck movement by Washington but never got any sustained offensive push going and continued to pay when they did make a mistake. At 6:58, the Flyers fell into a 3-1 hole after a Jakub Voracek centering pass with no teammates near the net was picked off by Washington. A late-arriving back check -- Oskar Lindblom was the only forward who got back, with Claude Giroux over the middle and Voracek on the right wing returning too slowly -- resulted in a wide open chance for Carlson (Voracek's man) being buried off a feed from Jakub Vrana. The deficit increased to 4-1 at 17:33 as Washington fourth-line center Dowd beat Sanheim one-on-one and then got a lucky bounce off the skate of Gostisbehere and into the net on an attempted pass.
4) The Capitals used active sticks and good positioning to completely shut down the Flyers' offense in the second period. The Flyers, who had nary a high-danger chance and only one mid-range scoring chance the entire second period, had most one-and-done attempts and a lot of forced passes that were easily turned out for zone exits.
5) The final 89 seconds of the second period had to be delayed due to broken glass behind the Flyers' bench. The time was added after the second intermission, The horn sounded after 1:29 and then the third period began. At the buzzer, the referees called offsetting penalties on Zdeno Chara and Konecny; no penalties at all would have been called from the exchange until Chara took a chop at the back of Konecny's legs.
During the ensuing 4-on-4 to start the third period, Couturier made a very nice move to buy time and space after entering the offensive zone and found Provorov joining the play. The defenseman took a pass and scored from the left side to cut the gap to 4-2 at 1:43. Erik Gustafsson got the secondary assist.
The Flyers got back within 4-3 at 10:45 as Laughton hustled to receive a pass from Kayes after offensive zone entry and buried it to the glove side to narrow the gap to 4-3 at 10:45. More 4-on-4 play ensued shortly thereafter on coincidental minors on Giroux and Evgeny Kuznetsov. Philly got a brief 4-on-3 and then a 5-on-4 power play after Washington was called for too many men on the ice but generated little pressure.