York benched
It was a long night for the whole of the team, and for all of us watching, but it was a short one for Cam York. After a rough shift on the play leading up to that first Leafs goal — wherein he was stripped of the puck behind his own net and then had the shot from Tavares ultimately went in off of his skate — just 10:37 into the game, York didn’t see the ice for the remainder of the game. It was a bit of a baffling move, and one that will remain baffling, as John Tortorella declined to give any reasoning or explanation for the move in his postgame availability, so we’ll leave it here — the Flyers were left to play the remaining nearly 50 minutes of that game shorthanded, without a defenseman who regularly takes 20 or so minutes a night, and it showed.
Self-inflicted wounds
While it’s true that the Flyers were victims in this one of a real mismatch in the levels of talent between their roster and the Leafs’, it’s impossible not to acknowledge that, but the even more significant killer for the Flyers tonight came at their own hands. They were a mess tonight, there’s no other way to say it — they were losing one-on-one battles left and right and getting burned for it, they weren’t connecting on their passes, they were skating right into pressure so intense that the only foreseeable outcome was them turning the puck over, and turn the puck over they did. In short, tonight was the Flyers straying far, far away from the game they need to play — they’ve said it time and again, while they’re not a team that can out-skill many others in the league at the moment, they are one that can try to outwork their opponents, but they got blown out of the water in that department tonight as well. And that, indeed, is probably the biggest cause for concern coming out of this one.
Welp.
That’s a wrap on the roadtrip, folks. Mercifully, it’s over. The Flyers wrapped up their trip tonight in Toronto, and felt the full force of the Leafs’ high-powered offense, and had very little to offer in the way of pushback. It’s rough out here.
The Basics
First period: 7:59- Ryan Poehling (Pelletier, Abols), 10:37- John Tavares (Nylander), 15:11- William Nylander (Knies, Matthews)PPG
Second period: 1:45- Bobby McMann (Nylander), 7:49- John Tavares (Matthews, Knies), 11:55- William Nylander (Tavares, McMann), 15:08- David Kampf (Jarnkrok, Lorentz), 18:17- Sean Couturier (Drysdale, Michkov)
Third period: 11:30- Max Domi (McCabe)
SOG: 30 (TOR) – 19 (PHI)
Some Takeaways
New looks
We’ll give the Flyers credit here, as bleak as things have grown and how Over the season well and truly feels, at least they’re not just completely going through the motions and refusing to put in any work to improve. Granted, there does feel like there’s a degree of throwing anything and everything at the wall right now, but it’s not nothing.
All of this is to say that the Flyers tried something new tonight, in the form of an all-forwards top power play unit, comprised of Brink, Konecny, Couturier, Michkov, and Foerster, in an attempt to load that unit with as much offense as possible. It was an interesting idea, but not one that paid dividends in this one. It just didn’t click, in short, as they struggled to so much as get set up in the offensive zone, much less create anything meaningful in the way of chances. We’ll see if they go back to this unit again on Thursday, if they’re given a bit more time to figure it out, but their first audition wasn’t an overly strong one.
Nothing doing
Of course, that top power play unit isn’t the only one that struggled to get their offense going in this game. Indeed, there were long stretches of this game wherein the Flyers had no more than two or three more shots than the Leafs had goals on them, the disparity in possession and dangerous plays put together was so great. Now, the Flyers did manage to bear down some through the back half of the game (putting up 12 shots, building on the just seven they had in the first half), and were able to put away two of their shots, but on the whole, the offense was just not there for them in this one. There was nothing overly cohesive about their play — they were overpassing at times and missing out on windows that were opening up, they were failing to connect and undercooking their plays in other times — and they had very little to show for their efforts. Hopefully they can respond in their next game, but the lack of offense and lack of cohesion was certainly concerning in this one.
Mar 25, 2025; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews (34) plays the puck away from Philadelphia Flyers goalie Samuel Ersson (33) and forward Tyson Foerster (71) in the third period at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
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