Flyers look to rebound and try not to lay another dud tonight in Tampa

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We all knew that the Flyers’ point streak and recent hot stretch would eventually come an end. But man, oh, man was that ever a dud they laid in South Florida on Monday night.

The Orange and Black sleepwalked through the first 40 minutes and could never recover as they were dropped by a particularly bad Panthers team, 3-1, and saw their seven-game point streak come to a screeching halt.

It was a missed opportunity for a precious two points on a night that where the Devils and Rangers lost in regulation and the Penguins gained just a single point. All of those teams sit ahead of the Flyers in what Charles Barkley would likely classify as a “TURRIBLE” Metropolitan Division.

After the game, Scott Hartnell said he and his mates may have “underestimated” the lowly Panthers, but the game saw the Flyers do a lot of the same things they did during their wretched start to the season.

They turned the puck over way too much, had difficulty entering the offensive zone cleanly, overpassed when in the offensive zone, blew glorious power-play opportunities, lost board battles and were generally outhustled by the third-worst team in the league.

The Flyers have an opportunity to prove that Monday’s game was anomaly to their recent play and rebound tonight in Tampa against a surprisingly good-so-far Lightning squad.

There are few storylines heading into this game, most notably Vinny Lecavalier’s return to Tampa as Flyer after 15 years as a franchise pivot for the Lightning and the absence of one of the best hockey players in the world in Steven Stamkos, the lethal Lightning sniper who broke his leg in a somewhat gruesome fashion a few weeks ago.

Go ahead and try not cringe while watching his leg just float around like it’s made out of Jell-O. Consider it my Thanksgiving gift to you all. You’re all welcome!

Anyway, the Lecavalier return angle has been and will continue to be pulverized into the ground and most hockey fans know how important Stamkos, who has scored 13 goals in 19 career games against the Flyers, is to the Lightning.

I’m most interested in seeing how the Flyers respond from Monday’s lousy effort. At the beginning of the year, the Flyers would have likely kept the lousiness rolling along because there just wasn’t any confidence at all.

But this isn’t this isn’t the same Flyers team from the beginning of the year, or so we think.

There’s a sense of confidence around the group now, both internally and from the fanbase. That’s what 13 out of a possible 14 points over seven games will do for you.

Don’t get it twisted, just because Stamkos is on the shelf doesn’t mean the Lightning should be taken any less seriously. The Lightning is still a dangerous team. Tampa has a 15-8-1 record and 31 points, sits second in the Atlantic division and averages the seventh-most goals per game in the league with 2.88 per contest.

This game will be a pretty good test for the Flyers.  Keep in mind that the only team with the winning record the Flyers played during their 6-0-1 stretch was those filthy, rotten, no-good Penguins. But the Flyers did respond nicely to their only loss during that stretch with a 5-2 victory over the Senators in their next game.

“Razor” Ray goes between the pipes tonight for the Flyers. He’s 3-3-0 in six starts this season with a .910 save percentage and a 2.53 goals-against average. More recently, Emery is 3-1 in his last four starts and has given up just four goals total in those starts. He has a 6-3-2 record in 11 career games played against the Lightning. Backup netminder Anders Lindback, who is 1-5-0 with a .872 save percentage and 3.47 goals-against average, goes for the Lightning.

The first period should be pretty telling of what to expect the rest of the game. We’ll see if the Flyers come out with that hustle and effort to their game and jump on the ice that they sorely lacked against the Panthers.

I mean, I would have trouble concentrating, too, if there were only like 50 people in crowd like there was on Monday in South Florida. But, whatever, let’s just not lay another uninspired egg tonight, Flyers.

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