The Philadelphia Flyers are not off to the start they were expecting.
Coach Rick Tocchet’s squad visits the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday, and the Flyers will try to get their first victory of the season against a club that recorded its first win over the weekend.
Optimism abounded around the Flyers after last season ended with a playoff appearance, snapping a five-season drought, and a first-round series win over their cross-state rival Pittsburgh Penguins in six games.
However, Sidney Crosby and the hated Penguins exacted a bit of revenge Wednesday when they demolished Philadelphia 7-0 in its season opener on home ice. New Pittsburgh forward Nick Robertson scored twice and goaltender Arturs Silovs made 19 saves for the shutout.
A pair of 3-2 overtime losses, at the New Jersey Devils and home against the Carolina Hurricanes, had the Flyers feeling a little better than when they skated off the ice to a chorus of boos after the opener.
Defenseman Travis Sanheim, who notched a goal and an assist in the loss to the Devils, felt his club played better against New Jersey but still needed plenty of work.
“I thought it was better,” said Sanheim. “I thought our guys battled harder, for sure, but when you’re turning over that many pucks and spending that much time in the defensive zone, it’s hard to win hockey games.”
Said Tocchet after Saturday’s loss to the Hurricanes on a power-play slap shot by former Flyer Shayne Gostisbehere: “You have to execute plays. Our execution is not good this year. It really isn’t.”
With just two points, both on overtime losses, in three games, Philadelphia joined the Detroit Red Wings as the only winless Eastern Conference clubs entering Sunday’s action.
The Lightning were able to execute in their 3-1 win Saturday over the visiting Washington Capitals, who were playing on the second night of a back-to-back. Tampa Bay leaned on the strong goaltending of two-time Vezina Trophy-winning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who stopped 20 of 21 shots in his 600th career game.
Jake Guentzel put the game away with an empty-net goal and assisted on the Lightning’s other two goals as Tampa Bay won its home opener.
Coach Jon Cooper was critical of his team’s performance following a season-opening 5-1 rout by the host New York Rangers on Thursday, describing the game as seemingly an “inconvenience” to his group, which offered little “pushback.”
Cooper said the victory over Washington was a step in the right direction from a compete level.
“It was one win, in the end it wasn’t the final result, it was how we were getting to that point,” the 15th-year Lightning coach said. “What you saw (Saturday) is what we expect night in and night out. It’s hard to do, especially with schedules and back-to-backs and things like that, but you give an effort and you compete.
“We won a ton of battles, which was the complete opposite of what happened the night before.”
Tampa Bay excelled on home ice last season, going 26-14-1. Saturday’s win improved the Lightning’s all-time record in home openers to 21-9-3.
The Lightning went 3-0-0 against the Flyers last season and have won the last four meetings overall by a combined 17-3, with two shutouts.