The games that count are here. Thursday night, the Flyers will be on the ice for the first time in the 2022-23 regular season, taking on the New Jersey Devils.
In a 7-1 rout by the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Flyers losing streak reached eight games, with now three of those losses coming at the hands of the back-to-back champs. And the takeaways from this one are pretty simple. It can’t be much longer before more changes start coming. There isn’t much more to say about the play on the ice that hasn’t already been said during this streak. A season that was all about making the playoffs and getting back to winning has become the opposite in a hurry.
Since their last meeting, the Lightning not only claimed the 2020 Stanley Cup, but followed it up with another title in 2021. The two-time defending Stanley Cup champions are in town and the circumstances remain the same. The Flyers are in for another early season test.
The Tampa Bay Lightning built the foundation of their championship team through the draft and had to experience a lot of failure before reaching the top. The Flyers may be in the early stages of following the same blueprint.
Corey Perry scored his second goal of the game on a rebound at 9:23 of the second overtime to give the Stars a 3-2 win in Game 5 and force a Game 6 on Monday night.
With goals from Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Ondrej Palat, the Lightning scored two goals in the first and three in the second to cruise to a 5-2 win over the Dallas Stars in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday night, taking a 2-1 series lead in the process.