POSTGAME 5: Flyers Slip Against Chicago, 4-1

The Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Chicago Blackhawks,4-1, at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday evening.

A Morgan Frost goal (10th) at 8:52 of the first period stood as the lone goal of the opening stanza. A deflection tally by Jonathan Toews (13th) at 9:51 of the second period knotted the score at 1-1. An Owen Tippett turnover became Reese Johnson marker (3rd) and a 2-1 lead for Chicago at 15:51. In the opening 35 seconds of the third period,a Tyler Johnson rebound goal (6th) gave Chicago a 3-1 lead. Phillip Kurashev (7th) scored an empty net goal with 41.3 seconds remaining.
Carter Hart took the loss. He stopped 25 of 28 shots. Ex-Flyer Petr Mrazek stopped 37 of 38 shots to earn the win.
The Flyers went 0-for-2 on the power play. The Blackhawks did not receive a power play.
FLYERS LINEUP
86 Joel Farabee - 49 Noah Cates - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 48 Morgan Frost - 74 Owen Tippett
13 Kevin Hayes - 21 Scott Laughton - 57 Wade Allison
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 38 Patrick Brown - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 45 Cam York
6 Travis Sanheim - 77 Tony DeAngelo
24 Nick Seeler - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
79 Carter Hart
33 Samuel Ersson
TURNING POINT
The Flyers had stretches were they seemed either to lack energy or not be sharp enough in their puck management and defensive awareness when they didn't have the puck. The sequences that led up to the Reese Johnson and Tyler Johnson goals proved very costly.
MELTZER'S TAKE
1) A Jake McCabe shot from the top of the left circle was the game's only shot on goal through the first 3:30. A Ristolainien point shot at the 4:00 mark was the first shot on goal by Philly. Shots were 2-1 Chicago through five minutes.and 3-2 Blackhawks through a TV timeout at 7:19. There were no high-grade scoring chances up to that juncture.
Chicago's Max Domi line kept the Cates line hemmed in after a couple of failed clearing opportunities.
The Flyers took a 1-0 lead at 8:52. A Blackhawks entry attempt failed, and Seeler outletted to Frost. Stickhandling down the ice, Frost seemed to be looking to pass but then a shooting lane opened. Frost urned defenseman Seth Jones inside out and .then beat Mrazek over the glove. Seeler and Ristolainen earned the assists.
A mere 10 seconds later, the Blackhawks' Andreas Athanasiou was at least five feet offside when he received a pass and went in to score. The Flyers challenged the play and the goal was quickly overturned on official reviw.
MacEwen breakaway opportunity just before the 1:200 mark. He shot the puck over the net.
At 14:24, Kane had a look from the right circle. Hart read the pass to Hayes all the way and made the save look easy.
Athansiou absorbed a heavy hit from Deslauriers near the player benches. it drew a roar from the Wells Fargo Center crowd.
With 1:27 left in the first period, Laughton wiped out and crashed heavily into the dasher boards. It looked scary but Laughton quickly returned to the bench.
Connor Murphy cross-checked Allison in the back as Allison was facing the boards. A minor penalty was assessed at 18:49. Laughton returned to the ice to skate the second shift. The Flyers took 49 seconds of carryover PP time into the second period.
2) The game started out at a rather slow, low-event pace but picked up a bit as it progressed. The move that Frost put on Jones leading up to his goal was outstanding. First period shots on goal were 9-7 in the Blackhawks' favor. Shot attempts were 21-20 Chicago. Scoring chances were 8-7 Blackhawks but the Flyers held a 4-2 high-danger chance edge. Chicago won 10 of 16 faceoffs. The Flyers had a few more turnovers in the first period than they'd have liked (five charged giveaways plus three takeaways credited to Chicago).
3) The Flyers were unable to generate much of anything on the carryover power play time. At 2:07, Domi set up a chance for Kane in close off a pass-out from behind the net. It was the period's first shot on goal.
Laughton pounced on a giveaway by Seth Jones. Mrazek made a tough save to keep the deficit at 1-0. Cates broke up a Chicago pass high in the defensive zone and started a 3-on-2 rush the other way.
At 7:16, Hart tracked an Ian Mitchell shot from the point all the way into his glove. The Flyers won the next draw. Chicago regained possession on their own side of the redline and iced the puck. The Laughton line applied pressure on the next shift. Shots were 5-4 Chicago through 8:30.
Chicago tied the game at 1-1 at 9:51. After a D-to-D pass from McCabe to Seth Jones, a high tip from Toews re-directed the puck's trajectory and it went into far side the net. The assists went to Seth Jones an McCabel.
Philly quickly went on a power play after the Toews goal as Caleb Jones was called for tripping at 10:08. Konecny narrowly missed a goal on a shot that went off the inside of the post, hit Mrazek but didn't go in the net. After the power play, the Flyers fourth line had a solid forechecking shift.
Seth Jones moved over the middle and received a pass on the tape from Kane. Hart made the save at 14:38 (the goalie's 16 on 17 shots).
Chicago claimed a 2-1 lead at 15;51 of the second period. Tippett turned over to Colin Blackwell high in the defensive zone. Blackwell passed across to Reese Johnson, who scored from the right slot.
There was a massive scramble at the Chicago net after a 2-on-1 opportunity for the Flyers. Caleb Jones swatted away what looked to be a goal off the stick by Cam York.The Blackhawks took a 2-1 lead to the second intermission.
4) Second period shots on goal were 13-11 Flyers. Shot attempts were 21-16 Flyers. Scoring chances were 10-8 Flyers. High danger chances were 2-2. All that ultimately mattered, of course, was that Chicago put two pucks in the cash register and the Flyers went from leading by a goal to trailing by a goal. Through two periods, the Flyers had 15 turnovers (9 giveaways plus six Chicago takeaways) Chicago, which is statistically the NHL's most turnover prone team relative to their puck possession time, had nine turnovers (six giveaways plus three Flyers takeaways with two of the takeaways coming from Cates).
5) The Blackkawks made it 3-1 just 35 seconds into the third period. DeAngelo got caught on the wrong side of the puck. Kane had an initial shot attempt stopped but Tyler Johnson scored on the rebound from a tight angle. McCabe received the secondary assist.
At 4:40, Cates had a look from the deep slot after intercepting a breakout pass attempt. Shots were 6-2 Flyers. On the next shift, DeAngelo hustled back to erase his own up-ice miscue. DeAngelo then attempted a clearing pass but it hit a body.
On his next shift, DeAngelo broke up a developing 3-on-1 for Chicago.
Tortorella did a lot of line combination juggling in the third period.
Shots were 13-7 Flyers through 14:06. An attempted set play on a breakout turned instead into a Flyers icing. Frost beat three defenders on a solo rush on his next shift.
The Flyers pulled Hart for a 6-on-5 with about three minutes left in regulation. DeAngelo fired a center point shot through a screen with 1:43 on the clock. Mrazek made his 36th save. The Flyers called timeout. Kurashev's empty-netter sealed it.
Third period shots were 16-8 Flyers.