Well That Was Less Than Ideal

Flyers 3, Penguins 4

And for the first time since October 17, 2013, the Philadelphia Flyers lost a game to the Pittsburgh Penguins. And aside from the final few moments of the night, it was an incredibly shitty last 40 minutes of hockey. Beyond pathetic, really. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first period and going 2/2 on the power play, the Flyers seemed like they decided to take the rest of the night off and got flat out DOMINATED everywhere on the ice.

I wish I could say that it was just the bottom 6 forwards that lost this game for the Flyers but every line got dominated. Every line lost the possession battle and it was tough to watch. It’s jarring how much worse this team is without Sean Couturier in the lineup. If there’s one thing that we learned tonight, it’s that Sean Couturier might be the biggest piece to the Flyers success moving forward. Without him centering that 2nd line, this team just doesn’t have a single answer to any top-tier talent. Malkin and Crosby were able to walk all over the place out there and the Flyers were stuck chasing like a bunch of chumps for 40 straight minutes. They were chasing 5v5, they were chasing 4v5, and they were even chasing 5v4. It was embarrassing.

Last thing here before I let all the Penguins fans give me what I deserve in the comment sections… if we have to watch another game with RJ Umberger in this lineup I will have to hurt somebody or something. Just take a page out of the Drouin playbook and stop showing up for work or something. It blows my mind away that Dave Hakstol continues to keep him out there. He is the most worthless bag of shit on skates I’ve ever seen and he does nothing but hold this team down. Hopefully Coots is able to come back from his injury sooner than later, keep Gagner in the lineup and swap Umberger out for Weal. But it’s getting to the point where I’m praying that Umberger runs into Brian Campbell again and it’s pretty unfair of him to make me wish an injury upon somebody.

1975. There, I beat you to the punch.