Provorov with a rare bad outing
Ivan Provorov will want to forget this one. The Flyers top defenseman had a brutal outing, posting a minus-3 and contributing to at least three of San Jose’s eight goals. Provorov just looked to be fighting the puck all evening, which is reminiscent of his poor performance last year against the LA Kings in one of the first few games of the season. Provorov picked it up after that effort, but it’s obviously concerning to see the usually steady Russian player make so many mistakes.
This game was ugly. First, a poor shot attempt from Provorov was blocked by Logan Couture, who collected and raced up the ice on an odd man rush, leading to the game’s opening score. But it didn’t end there. On the third goal, both Provorov and Shayne Gostisbehere were caught in bad positions in front of the net, not able to effectively clear the crease. On the sixth goal, neither Provorov nor Radko Gudas ever picked up Tomas Hertl in coverage, leaving him wide open in front of the net.
These clunkers happen in the NHL especially with defenseman, who typically log the most minutes on the team night in and night out. There’s certainly no real need to be overly concerned about Provorov, as the overall team defense was considerably poor throughout the whole game.
However, one might need to consider the possibility that Provorov is still feeling some of the effects of his separated shoulder injury sustained in last year’s playoffs. The odds of that escaping the training staff are probably very low, but it can’t be ruled out entirely. Perhaps it was just a case of everyone on the Flyers having an off night, and since players that play more minutes are going to face more of the those scoring chances, it just so happened that Provorov was on the ice for several of the opposing goals.
Hopefully Provorov rebounds against Ottawa, putting the concerns to rest.