Empty Thoughts: Flyers 5, Penguins 2

Observations from the Penguins’ 5-2 loss to the Flyers on Friday:

Two games into the 2020-21 season, the Penguins have had some pleasant surprises.

• The emergence of the third line involving Jared McCann, Mark Jankowski and Brandon Tanev has carried the team’s five-on-five offense with three goals.

• The power play has shown some signs of life as well, scoring two goals in as many contests.

And… that might be about it.

The Penguins have had some notable absences — literally and metaphorically — to open this season.

The most prominent of those could be Evgeni Malkin and, by extension, his wingers Bryan Rust and Jason Zucker. That trio has been rather inert through all of two games.

They combined for four even-strength shots and that’s fine. But that combination is arguably the team’s most talented line. It needs to carry some of the freight offensively.

Rust professed optimism after Friday’s game.

“I thought in that first game, we probably could have been better, myself included,” Rust said via video conference. “We didn’t make the right plays. This game, we had a fair bit of chances. It’s just one of those things that we’ll keep getting better. It was much better from game one. Hopefully, we can keep building and pucks will start going in.”

Give full credit to Flyers goaltender Carter Hart. He’s been pretty stout through two games despite having his team be outshot 67-45 over that span.

But the Penguins have the talent to be far more dangerous with the puck.

Especially that second line and its center.

“When (Malkin) doesn’t score, he tends to be hard on himself,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “We’re just going to encourage him to play the game hard. Keep playing the game the right way. When you have an opportunity to shoot the puck, shoot the puck. But I’m not concerned about (Malkin). He’s a terrific player.”

What happened

The Flyers struck first 7:27 into the contest with a power-play score. Settling a pass in the left circle, Flyers forward Claude Giroux fed a seam pass to the right circle for forward Jakub Voracek. Leaning down, Voracek one-touched a pass to the left of the crease. Flyers forward Travis Konecny fended off Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin and swatted the puck past the blocker of a helpless Jarry for his first goal of the season. Voracek and Giroux had assists.

Konecny cashed in against only 2:59 later. Controlling a puck on the end boards, Flyers forward James van Riemsdyk fed a pass low in the left circle for forward Nolan Patrick. Driving the crease, Patrick had a wrister denied by Jarry’s left leg. On the ensuing scramble, Jarry was spun around and Konecny was able to crash the blue paint and pushed the puck into the cage. Assists went to Patrick and van Riemsdyk.

It became a 3-0 game at 11:30 of the first. Settling a puck in the right circle, Voracek allowed the play to develop and slid a pass to defenseman Ivan Provorov in the left circle. Provorov gripped and ripped a wrister by Jarry’s blocker on the near side for his first goal. Sullivan had seen enough and pulled Jarry — perhaps for humanitarian purposes — in favor of Casey DeSmith. Voracek and van Riemsdyk were credited with assists.

The Penguins converted their first power-play chance of the contest at the 12:59 mark. From above the left circle, Rust whipped a backhanded pass to the right circle for Jake Guentzel who tried to tried to one-touch a forehand pass to forward Sidney Crosby darting across the front of the crease. Flyers defenseman Robert Hagg leaned down and blocked the pass with his stick but Crosby was able to corral the rebound and lifted a backhanded shot off the near post that fluttered into the cage over sprawling goaltender Carter Hart. It was Crosby’s second goal in as many games. Guentzel and Rust netted assists.

The Penguins made it a 3-2 game only 32 seconds later. Off a head-man feed from Jankowski, McCann blazed into the offensive zone up the right wing and lifted a wrister to the far side which Hart punched to the slot with his blocker. Tanev followed up on the rebound and plunked it into the cage with a forehand shot for his second goal. McCann and Jankowski had assists.

Konecny completed his first career hat trick at 12:53 of the third. After Jankowski and Penguins defenseman Kris Letang failed to connect on a pass during a short-handed rush into the offensive zone, Konecny corralled the puck in his own right circle and fed a little pass to Giroux who gained the Penguins’ zone on the left wing. Hesitating for a moment to allow things to develop, Giroux fed a pass from the left circle to forward Kevin Hayes in the right circle. Hayes then one-touched the puck to the left of the crease. Konecny drove the net and fanned on the shot but had the puck deflect off his left skate and into the cage. Assists went to Hayes and Giroux.

An empty net goal by forward Oskar Lindblom, his second of the season, capped the scoring at 17:52 of the third. Forward Scott Laughton and Konecny collected assists.

Statistically speaking

• The Penguins led in shots, 33-20.

• Crosby led the game with six shots.

• Patrick and van Riemsdyk each led the Flyers with three shots.

• Provorov led the game with 23:18 of ice time on 30 shifts.

• Letang led the Penguins with 23:06 of ice time on 31 shifts.

• The Penguins had a 26-24 edge in faceoffs (52%).

• Giroux was 12 for 17 (71%).

• Crosby was 15 for 22 (68%).

• Penguins defensemen Marcus Pettersson, Chad Ruhwedel and Letang each led the game with two blocked shots.

Randomly speaking

• There was an ugly moment at 14:40 of the second period where McCann was called for elbowing after he clubbed Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim in the head with his left arm:

Oof. Just ugly. That would have been a penalty in the wild west 1990s. Thankfully, Sanheim escaped injury but that’s something the NHL’s Player Safety department should give a good look at.

• The results for Jarry haven’t been good at all. Nine goals on 31 shots equates to a .710 save percentage. Yes, it’s only two games. And yes, he’s been under siege behind a porous defense. But he hasn’t looked close to stealing a goal or making a save that shifts momentum.

He’ll be better. He almost has to be after such a poor start to the season.

• DeSmith looked pretty good in relief. It was his first game in nearly two calendar years and he was very tuned in.

• The Penguins weren’t completely awful by any means. That’s to say they were probably the better team over the bulk of this contest. They just had short segments during the game where they were terrible.

• Both teams looked sloppy throughout this contest. That is surely a byproduct of a short training camp following a long layoff.

• The officials called a pretty tight game as there were 12 power-play opportunities combined. It’s difficult to tell if that’s due to the teams being rusty or if the officials have a stricter standard for calls to open the season. Regardless, you better have your special teams in order under these conditions.

• Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel made his season debut in place of Cody Ceci on the third pairing. He looked OK. While he did take a penalty that led to the game’s first goal, he logged 15:23 of ice time on 23 shifts and had three shots on four attempts, including a short-handed breakaway that Hart snuffed out.

• Guentzel has been a passenger through two games. Sure, he had an assist on Friday but that was due mostly to Crosby being quick enough to process a deflected pass and score.

• The Evan Rodrigues experiment on the right wing of the top line might have reached its conclusion. He’s been rather inert in that deployment.

• Speaking of which, Kasperi Kapanen was removed from the NHL’s coronavirus protocol list on Friday. His potential availability would be welcomed.

• One could argue the Penguins’ current third line has been more effective through two games than any configuration they used on the third line last season. McCann and Tanev each play hard-scrabble games and have really boosted the skills of Jankowski.

• As for Jankowski, he has three points through two games. Last season, he had seven points in 56 games.

• This game featured far more scrums and post-whistle dustups than the first game. It’ll be interesting to see how the season progresses with these two-game series.

• The Flyers have shown off some serious depth through these two games. They could probably still benefit from adding another defenseman following the retirement of Matt Niskanen this past offseason, but they have skill all throughout their forward ranks.

This is a well-constructed squad.

• The Flyers played most of the game without top-line center Sean Couturier who recorded only two shifts before leaving the game with a shoulder ailment.

Historically speaking

• The last time Jarry was pulled from a start was March 10, 2018. He allowed four shots on 16 saves before giving way to DeSmith in a 5-2 home loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

• DeSmith’s last NHL game also came in relief. He spelled Matt Murray in a 5-1 home loss to the St. Louis Blues, March 16, 2019. He made 12 saves on 13 shots in that contest.

• The Flyers’ last regular season hat trick against the Penguins was recorded by Voracek in a 6-5 road win, Feb. 20, 2013. Goaltender Tomas Vokoun gave up all three goals.

• Bryan Rust (171 points) surpassed Petr Nedved (170) for 48th place on the franchise’s career scoring list.

Publicly speaking

• Sullivan defended Jarry:

“As far as Tristan’s start to the season, it’s tough to give up that amount of goals on not a lot of shots or not a lot of chances. But to his defense, some of the chances were high quality. You have to give Philadelphia credit. They converted on the opportunities that they got. I thought we were the better team tonight. We couldn’t convert on ours and I thought they were opportunistic on their side.

“He had a real strong camp. It’s really difficult to assess in such a short window where Tristan’s game was the last couple of games. I know he gave up a fair amount of goals but to his defense, the types of goals that went into the net were high-quality chances. That’s not an easy thing. We’re going to try to assess it as objectively as we can. Tristan is a good goalie. He’s a competitor. I know he’ll bounce back. He’s a solid goaltender. “

• Rust says there’s plenty of positives to take from the game:

“We’ll clean up those breakdowns. There is a lot to like. We’ve had the puck an awful lot. We’ve had an awful lot of chances. Just in certain situations, when we do break down, we can’t chase a mistake with a mistake. We got to limit those snowball-effect areas. In the first period, they scored three goals in not a lot of time. You saw that in the first game too. They got three (goals) in the third period in however many minutes. When we do get scored on once, to stop that momentum and get that momentum back, I think is going to be a big key for us moving forward.”

• Sullivan is optimistic over what he saw:

“These guys have had a number of chances. The puck didn’t go in the net for them. I know they’re working hard. Tonight, we had a lot of emotion, we had a lot of energy. I thought we controlled a lot of territory. I believe these guys will score. They’re talented players. It didn’t go in for us tonight. But certainly, there was a lot to like about this game.”

• Ruhwedel knows what needs to be fixed:

“We just have to limit the really high quality chances against. The effort is definitely there. We’re working hard. Guys are skating, getting a lot of chances. Just have to limit the chances against. … We have to protect our net front a little better, help our goalies out. Just try to keep them out of that blue paint.”

• Voracek was frank in describing the state of play on both sides:

“It was a sloppy game, I’ll tell you that much. All over the ice. It’s positive things. We scored 11 goals. But we are far from the best.”

Visually speaking

• Game summary.

• Event summary.

• Highlights:

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