Philadelphia Flyers: The Calgary Flames dash Philly’s scoring streak

As improbable as it may have sounded six months ago when they were coming off of a horrible showing down the stretch, the Philadelphia Flyers have become one of the most fun teams to watch in the NHL.

They have a ton of shooters, a fantastic powerplay attack, and have largely been the benefactors of a bounce-back campaign by Carter Hart.

Heck, even their defender have been much improved despite employing analytics anti-darling Rasmus Ristolainen.

Sidebar: That may have more to do with the additions of Keith Yandle and Ryan Ellis, but hey, I digress.

But hey, after recording an average of 4.16 goals per game over the first six of the season, eventually the tables were going to turn, and the Philadelphia Flyers would turn in a stinker, right? Unfortunately, that happened in Calgary, in front of Carter Hart’s mom, no less.

Don’t panic about the Philadelphia Flyers’ loss to Calgary.

As calloused as it may sound, the Philadelphia Flyers were due for an ugly loss.

They only dropped one game in regulation on the season, which came against the then white-hot Florida Panthers, and were on their fourth game of a Canadian road trip that saw bouts against Connor McDavid and a second game with Martin Jones in net.

Let’s just say when you somehow leave two Martin Jones starts without a loss, you are playing on borrowed time.

So naturally, after watching the Philadelphia 76ers record a blowout win over their newfound rivals, the Atlanta Hawks, it felt only right for the Philadelphia Sports Gods to tilt things the other way and deliver onto fans who stayed up late a truly ugly outing versus “Pork Roll” Johnny Gaudreau and the Calgary Flames.

And when I say ugly, I mean ugly.

After entering the final period of the game down a very manageable 1-0 thanks to a mid-second period powerplay goal scored by Sean Monahan, Carter Hart and company allowed three more goals in the final 15 minutes of regulation, giving up another powerplay goal this time to Matt Tkachuk, and two more full-strength goals to Mikael Backlund and Johnny G himself respectively.

Despite winning the faceoff and giveaways game versus the Flames, the Flyers were outshot 37 to 20 and never really got things going outside of a few strained attempts late in the third once the contest was already out of hand, with even the shots of Cam Atkinson and Sean Couturier falling uncharacteristically silent.

Really, the only things that could have made the outing worse was if Hart tried to play a puck from behind the net and gave up a gimme goal like he did the Sidney Crosby at the beginning of last season.

So what gives? Do the Flyers stink again, or is there little reason to worry about dropping the fourth game of a Canadian road trip played at 10 pm EST?

Personally, I’d fall more on the side of the latter.

With two days off before a three-game East Coast residency that kicks off November 2nd at the Wells Fargo Center, the Philadelphia Flyers will have a chance to sleep in their own beds, hang out with their families, and eat at Wawa after a week of nothing but Tim Hortons. If that doesn’t get the pucks moving, I don’t know what will.