The King Stands Tall as The Flyers Fall
After last night's performance, Steve Mason proved to be a liar. Sort of.
After yesterday's morning skate, in an interview, Steve Mason "admitted" that he was in no way fatigued — this was a result of him being named the starter for the 22nd time in 24 games. Well, after last night's game 5-2 loss, that proved to be exactly the opposite. Facing 27 shots and stopping 22 while posting a .852 save percentage is not where the Flyers want Mason. Especially considering the first two Rangers' goals went five-hole and could have easily been stopped. The third Rangers goal should have never happened considering Mase was being screened by his own defender; that's right, Radko Gudas was posted directly in front of Mason. Then again, it was a beautiful feed from Miller (Rangers) to Grabner (Rangers) to put the Rangers up.
Not only was the fifth straight loss for the Flyers a poor performance by Mason, it was also a poor performance by a good majority of the team. The defense was a complete train wreck. And once again, the offense could not muster together shots that were finding the back of the net .It's not like the Flyers were not shooting, they launched a total of 32 on Lundqvist, who stopped 30 of them, the only two that were buried came late in the third period off of Voracek's stick. Something that I still cannot seem to wrap my head around is some of the decisions made by coach Dave Hakstol. One of the first things, his choice of who plays and who plays with who.
Raffl | Giroux | Voracek |
Konecny | Schenn | Simmonds |
Read | Couturier | Weise |
VandeVelde | Bellemare | Gordon |
Moving forward, the Flyers play back to back games this weekend. Saturday at home against the Lighting and Sunday on the road against the red hot Columbus Blue Jackets. It is highly likely that Neuvirth gets the nod at least once. Considering how much Mason has played and how fatigued he looks on the ice.