There was a rather humorous exchange between NBC analysts Keith Jones and Mike Milbury last season in which Jones asserted that Sean Couturier was the Flyers’ most important player. Milbury disagreed, making an argument for Jake Voracek.
“Well,” Jones said flatly, “you’re wrong.”
For the record, an argument could be made that it's either Couturier or Carter Hart, but after a second consecutive loss at Boston, the argument for Couturier got a lot stronger.
Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand each had two goals as the Bruins sent the Flyers back to Philadelphia with an ugly 6-1 loss.
Even Hart, who has allowed 14 goals in his last three starts, has not been the rock lately that he was last season.
Alain Vigneault can espouse the next-man up attitude until his silk tie turns purple, but the Flyers had no answers again for Boston’s top line, especially Bergeron, the center.
To be clear, the Flyers’ problems go beyond the absence of Couturier and the sudden retirement of Matt Niskanen.
They were pushed around by the Bruins, staggered in their own zone, and the only defenseman they added for Niskanen — Erik Gustafsson — is an adventure. He was caught flat-footed by Bergeron on the Bruins’ fourth goal.
The Flyers dropped to 3-2-1 on the season and have lost consecutive road games for the first time since last season’s dreadful West Coast holiday trip. Boston, the best team in the regular season a year ago, was without league-leading scorer David Pastrnak.
In an effort to help Kevin Hayes’ line defensively, Vigneault replaced Joel Farabee at left wing with Michael Raffl.
Bergeron again burned the Flyers by winning an offensive zone faceoff to start the Bruins’ first power play. Fourteen seconds later, he scored the game’s first goal, and the Flyers were skating uphill all night.
During the Bruins’ third-period and overtime surge on Thursday, Boston won 18 of the last 24 faceoffs, including Bergeron winning six of his last eight in front of Hart.
“We’re a good face-off team, but you have to give credit where credit is due,” Vigneault said before the game. “Boston has got some of the best face-off guys in the league starting with Bergeron. For almost a decade now, he’s been one of the top performers in that area.”
The faceoff numbers were more even, but Boston generated more chances from their faceoff wins than the Flyers did.
Hart had a wonderful right pad save on Bergeron early in the second, which seemed to give the Flyers a brief lift. Hayes scored on the next shift on a deflection from Voracek.
Boston responded 76 seconds later with a goal from Craig Smith to take the lead for good. Charlie Coyle had a pretty — and fortunate — tip in at the end of the second to make it 3-1. Marchand scored twice early in the third to put things out of reach.
Claude Giroux played in his 610th game as Flyers captain on Saturday, tying the Flyers’ record held by Bobby Clarke, who coincidentally announced Giroux’s name (after briefly forgetting it) when the Flyers drafted Giroux in 2006.
Giroux would break Clarke’s record on Tuesday when the Flyers visit New Jersey. It also will be the 321st consecutive game for Giroux (and for Ivan Provorov, too).
Couturier (rib) is expected to be out at least another week, so he won’t be available for the Devils series. But it’s possible that he could be back in time for the rematch series against Boston on Feb. 3 and 5.
They could use him. And a whole lot more.
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