On April 1, the Philadelphia Flyers played the most important game of their 2023-24 campaign. Per MoneyPuck’s playoff model, a regulation win versus the New York Islanders would boost the Flyers’ playoff odds to 82.7 percent. A regulation loss would decrease them to just 55.4 percent. They were on track to doing the latter until less than 10 seconds to go in the game when they scored a clutch goal to force overtime. However, they lost said overtime in a crushing 4-3 final. What were some takeaways from the loss?
Frost Clutches Flyers a Huge Point, Coughs Up the Other
The much-maligned Morgan Frost had himself arguably the biggest goal of his career with just 9.6 seconds left in the game. His tally boosted the Flyers from outside a playoff spot if they were to lose in regulation to third place in the Metropolitan Division by just getting the point. Only a goal in the postseason could have possibly been more important.
Just looking at the percentage difference he created toward making the playoffs versus missing them, Frost’s goal might have been the “biggest” the Flyers have scored in years. For him, a player who was somewhat humorously compared to a toilet seat last season by his head coach, John Tortorella, what he did had to have felt good.
Unfortunately, though, the art of recency bias takes away from all the great Frost did in that play. In overtime, he fumbled a routine pass from defenseman Jamie Drysdale that ended up in the back of his net. It can’t happen, especially with the season on the line like it was. Ironically, he followed up the best play of his career with arguably his worst.
Still, Frost impacted the game positively. He was one of few Flyers’ stars who came to play, and for that he deserves praise. He deserves criticism for his miscue in overtime, but he was a net positive on the night. The Flyers are still in a playoff spot partially because of him.
A Potential Goalie Controversy
Getting the start in this game for the 25th time in the Flyers’ last 30 contests was Sam Ersson. He had been super rocky entering this contest, but Tortorella put faith in his guy one last time in a crucial contest. In the first period, it went about as disastrous as it possibly could. He gave up two goals on six shots, which was more of the same for the netminder. In the last week of March, he had the most goals against of any goaltender in the NHL at 13. He was pulled after that period.
To replace him, the Flyers looked to none other than Ivan Fedotov to make his NHL debut. Not only did he come to play, but he single-handedly kept the Flyers in the game. The team didn’t play very well for him, but he was absolutely ready for everything he went against. He stopped 19 of 21 Islander shots for a .905 save percentage (SV%), but even that is an underestimation of how he performed.
Being thrown in during the middle of a game is never easy, especially when you have never played a hockey game in North America in your life. For Fedotov, the adjustment wasn’t too bad. He made some huge saves for the Orange and Black in a game that they really didn’t deserve to be in whatsoever — their effort was poor overall.
His performance begs the question: Do the Flyers have a goalie controversy? Who might they use in the future? Their next two games are back-to-back, so it was likely both Ersson and Fedotov would start one of each anyway. If the former continues to be underwhelming, the latter could take over for the final stretch.
Tortorella Was Livid After the Game
Contrary to popular belief, Tortorella doesn’t really lash out after games like he used to. He has his moments, of course, but he generally keeps things tame at this stage of his coaching career. After this one, though, he did not shy away from criticizing his team in his postgame press conference.
When asked about how his team played in the second period, one where they were outshot 17-3, he did not hold back. “Soft,” was Tortorella’s term for the team. “That was embarrassing, the second period, for the Philadelphia Flyer uniform,” he later remarked.
The overall takeaway for him was that some players didn’t come to play. He didn’t specify who those players were, but it’s not particularly difficult to guess when both looking at the stats and which players were given a shot to play while a few others like Adam Ginning, Ronnie Attard, Denis Gurianov, Olle Lycksell, and Bobby Brink were not.
Long-time veterans Cam Atkinson, Nicolas Deslauriers, and Erik Johnson along with 24-year-old defender Egor Zamula got a spot in the lineup while the other five sat. The stats would say each of those five outperformed the four that were in the lineup over the course of the season, but Tortorella made a statement by letting these rather underperforming players of late try to get out of their ruts.
Unfortunately, they did not play well, and that has to be frustrating for Tortorella. He has every right to be upset with both himself and the players he tried to give an opportunity.
The Flyers don’t play until April 5 when they start a four-game road trip against the Buffalo Sabres, but their playoff lives will not be tampered with, as nobody can catch them in that time thanks to the point they got against the Islanders. The Flyers will now need a little bit of help to qualify versus completely controlling their own destiny before April 1, but their odds are still pretty solid. They have to end their five-game losing streak as soon as possible if they want to keep those odds, though.
