After 26 long days of winless hockey, the Philadelphia Flyers finally found a way to pull out a victory. In a rematch against a Calgary Flames team that beat them two and half weeks ago at the Wells Fargo Center, the Flyers got their revenge and in the process, ended the embarrassing ten-game losing streak that hung over the club. Philadelphia raced out to a 4-1 lead by the midway point of the second period, and easily hung on for a comfortable 5-2 win.

Brian Elliott earned the victory against his former team, stopped 43 of 45 shots. Scott Laughton scored two goals for the Flyers, while Michael Raffl, Valtteri Filppula and Wayne Simmonds all added goals of their own. Jakub Voracek chipped in with three big assists as well to help push the club to the much-needed win. Mike Smith took the loss for the Flames in net.

Note: This article will reference advanced hockey stats. If you’re looking to better understand any of the referenced metrics, please read this primer which explains the concepts behind them.

1: Flyers got some luck and took advantage

In the wake of Saturday’s listless loss to the Boston Bruins, I noted on Twitter that it was hard to imagine the Flyers’ current malaise being lifted without a big move or a very lucky game. The team just was so obviously frustrated and seemingly expected disaster to strike at every turn in their two losses last week. Aside from a trade or a coaching change (and Ron Hextall affirmed yesterday he has no interest in the latter right now), I suspected it would take a game where almost every break went the Flyers’ way to convince them that they could just play “their game” and the floor wouldn’t fall out from under them as it had so many other times.

They finally found themselves in that game last night.

Calgary more than doubled up Philadelphia in shots on goal (45-21) and possessed the puck for the majority of the game. But the Flyers got some breaks at key moments, and they used them as a springboard to a victory. The first came with less than a minute remaining in the first period, with the Flyers ready to enter the locker room down 1-0, given the entire intermission to fall back into “here we go again” doldrums. Instead, a harmless-looking Andrew MacDonald shot from above the faceoff circles hit a body in front and bounced right to both Raffl and Filppula, who simultaneously pushed the puck into the open net. Goal No. 2 also originated via a shot from distance, as Laughton deflected Shayne Gostisbehere’s point blast just enough to get it through Smith. Raffl’s goal to make the game 3-1 was a result of pure, high-end skill from him and his linemates, but Simmonds’ power play tally 46 seconds later only happened because the officials mistakenly whistled Michael Frolik for a high-sticking penalty when actually it was MacDonald who caught teammate Sean Couturier in the face.

These are the breaks that a team needs in order to pull out of a death spiral. Still, they deserve all the credit in the world for not letting the good fortune go to waste. Against Calgary two and a half weeks ago, the Flyers scored on two point shots and one wrister from distance that created a rebound, yet found a way to blow the game anyway due to a penalty-filled second period. This time, the Flames and the hockey gods spotted Philadelphia a few goals, and the club finished the job.

2: Bled shots in defensive zone, but won quality battle

The massive edge that the Flames held in both shots on goal and shot attempts (they led the Flyers 65-30 in 5v5 Corsi) can be attributed primarily to their ability to extract extra shots from their offensive zone possessions. Particularly in the first and second periods, the Flames were almost always generating at least one shot attempt when they got in on the attack, and regularly more than one. Some of the lack of shot suppression was due to bad bounces for the Flyers, but Philadelphia also lost a number of races to loose pucks along the boards, struggled to win battles behind the net and failed on a number of zone exits. They had serious trouble getting out of their own zone, in every way.

However, to the Flyers’ credit, they did a solid job in making sure that the bulk of those extra shots they allowed were coming from less-than-dangerous areas. It’s tough to know if this was an intentional focus — emphasize positional soundness in the defensive zone rather than selling out to win races and puck battles — or if it just came about due to the nature of the game, but the result was positive regardless. In fact, despite getting throttled from a raw volume standpoint on the night, the Flyers actually won the Expected Goals battle, both at 5-on-5 and in all-situations. For all 80 of Calgary’s shot attempts, it could muster just 2.44 xG on the night, while Philadelphia created 2.92 xG from just 39 attempts. That implies that the Flames’ shot attempts had an average “expected” shooting percentage of 3.05%, while the Flyers finished at 7.49 percent. That’s certainly one way to make up for a massive disparity in shot volume.

3: Flyers changed up their neutral zone forecheck

Former Flyers defenseman and current broadcaster Chris Therien made note on the broadcast that the Flyers were using a “1-2-2” forecheck against the Flames, which differed from their usual tactics. Following the contest, Dave Hakstol himself acknowledged the shift to Therien and the traveling media after the game, stating, “It’s just a different look for us. We made a couple of slight adjustments, and those things sometimes just kind of help you refocus a little bit.”

The interesting thing about referencing a “1-2-2” is that it actually could mean two separate tactical adjustments. There’s the 1-2-2 offensive zone forecheck, which is employed to recover loose pucks on the attack. Then, there’s the 1-2-2 neutral zone forecheck, which is a formation that a team uses in the middle of the ice to try to slow the opposition as it moves the puck up. Same name, two different tactics. So which of these was Therien (and the Flyers) referencing? I went back through tape of the game, and I’m fairly certain it was in reference to the latter, for a few reasons. To start, here’s an early example of what appears to be the 1-2-2 at work in the neutral zone.

Raffl comes in deep on the forecheck to pressure the Flames players breaking out; he’s the proverbial “1” in the 1-2-2. Then, you see Voracek and Filppula stretched across the blueline as the puck moves up ice; they’re the first “2” in the formation. Finally, the two defensemen (Robert Hagg and Gostisbehere) are lined up the deepest, and basically in line with each other as the final set of 2. There’s your neutral zone forecheck.

I know from conversations with multiple Flyers players this season that the team has leaned on a 1-3-1 neutral zone forecheck for the bulk of the year. In this forecheck, one forward provides puck pressure, while the two remaining forwards sit in the left and center positions in the middle “line.” The right defenseman takes up the final spot in the “3” and the left defenseman essentially functions as a safety, sitting back behind the three-man line and functioning as the primary puck retriever on dump-ins and failsafe in case one of the members of the middle line gets beat.

But why switch from a 1-3-1 to a 1-2-2? The simplest answer is that it gives Calgary a bit of a different look than what it likely expected from the Flyers. But I think it goes deeper than that. The 1-2-2 is more of a standard neutral zone forecheck, and this may have been a case of Hakstol wanting his team to go “back to basics” in a sense. It’s also because Philadelphia at times this year has struggled in executing the 1-3-1, as this goal by Brandon Montour in October showcased.

In a conversation that I had with Brandon Manning later that week at practice, he explained that his role on this particular play was to function as the “safety” in the 1-3-1, and his mistake was that he didn’t play far enough back to protect against the possibility of one of the wide players in the “3” getting beat, as Travis Konecny did here. My guess is that a move back to a 1-2-2 was meant to simplify things and avoid mistakes like the above from a team lacking confidence at the moment.

4: Raffl, Laughton step up

The Flyers’ biggest issue over the course of the season has been a complete lack of secondary scoring from forwards not named Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek or Sean Couturier. Of course, that wasn’t helped by Hakstol’s decision to stack all three of his top scorers on the same line at 5-on-5. Last night was the first game this season that the trio was broken up, mostly because the head coach probably felt like he had to do something after ten straight losses and two particularly horrid performances by his club. In the wake of his line juggling, two “role players” stepped up big time: Raffl and Laughton.

Raffl finished the game with a goal and an assist, but he was inches from a three-point night, as both he and Filppula basically pushed the puck into a wide-open net together on the Flyers’ first goal (Filppula received credit for the goal). There was no such controversy on Raffl’s other two points, however. He forced a turnover in the offensive zone in order to pick up a secondary assist on Laughton’s second period tally, and then blasted a perfect Voracek pass out of midair 25 seconds later to finally earn a goal of his own. His strong 72.73% xG For Percentage spoke to Raffl’s stellar night.

Laughton also was a standout. He doubled his full-season goal total in just 13:25 minutes of ice time, first deflecting a Gostisbehere shot past Smith to give the Flyers a lead they would never relinquish, and then killing any realistic hopes of a Flames comeback with a third-period rebound goal. He dominated by advanced metrics as well. In a night that saw Philadelphia get butchered from a Corsi standpoint, Laughton was the only Flyers to finish above 50% in score-adjusted CF%, at 52.76 percent. His performance by xG was even better — a team-leading 89.47%.

5: Let’s give Voracek some credit

Even as Voracek continued to rack up the points, he was beginning to receive increasing portions of the blame as the Flyers’ losing streak grew and grew. Some of it was warranted, particularly after Voracek’s coverage lapse resulted in an overtime loss against the Islanders and a late delay-of-game penalty put his team at a disadvantage entering the extra session versus the Penguins. But other criticisms — mostly centered around the idea that the Flyers’ core had to be at fault for the losses even as it remained the only reason most of the early games of the losing streak were close — seemed far less fair. Because Voracek controls the puck more than any other Flyer, he tends to produce more turnovers and be involved with more failed possessions. But that’s a product of volume, not ineffectiveness. No Flyers player has done a better job of directly creating shots and chances at 5v5 than Voracek, and he entered last night’s game with a strong 30-points-in-26-games scoring rate. He wasn’t the problem.

However, it was still nice to see him become an active part of the solution against the Flames. Voracek finished the game with three assists, including primaries on both Filppula’s first-period tally and Raffl’s second-period goal. It was the latter that really showed Voracek flexing his playmaking muscles, splitting the defense with a perfect give-and-go pass on the rush.

In his first game of the season away from Couturier and Giroux at 5v5, Voracek proved that he doesn’t need elite talent around him to produce. Raffl may be rediscovering his scoring touch, and Filppula remains a plus passer, but they’re a clear downgrade talent-wise from Voracek’s previous linemates. Hakstol put the onus on Voracek to elevate his new line to success and give the Flyers a second scoring unit, and he did just that.

6: Elliott rebounds from bad first period goal

After Troy Brouwer scored with less than two minutes remaining in the first period to give the Flames a 1-0 lead, it was looking like a “here we go again” night for the Flyers, in no small part because the goal was one that Elliott should have prevented. Curtis Lazar’s initial shot was not particularly dangerous and should have been swallowed up by the Flyers’ netminder; instead, he gave up a juicy rebound that Brouwer poked through the goalie’s five-hole. For a team that seemed to be finding new ways to lose each game, a “our goalie let us down” night seemed perfectly plausible.

But Elliott bore down and made sure that would be his only true mistake of the evening. His play in the second period was downright fantastic, as he faced 21 shots on goal from his former team and stopped 20 of them. The Flyers scored three goals during the middle session, but that burst of offense easily could have gone up in smoke considering the fragility of the team had Elliott not shut the door on numerous occasions. In the end, Elliott made 43 saves, and allowed two goals on 2.44 Flames Expected Goals, so it was a solid night’s work for the Philadelphia goalie in his return to Calgary.

7: Calgary understandably chased 3M matchup vs. Patrick line

The Flames’ trio of Mikael Backlund, Matthew Tkachuk and Michael Frolik has earned the nickname “The 3M Line,” and it’s truly earned a formal title. They may not get much hype on the East Coast, but since being put together last season, it’s been the closest the Western Conference has to the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line in Boston. In over 1,000 minutes at 5v5 together, the trio has posted a Corsi For Percentage of 58.04% and an xG of 56.75 percent. In other words, they’re very, very good.

Given the ability to line match more easily since Calgary held home ice, Flames coach Glen Gulutzan did his best to get the 3Ms out against Philadelphia’s most vulnerable trio on paper — the third line of Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny and Dale Weise. He only pulled it off on a few occasions, but in those limited minutes, they took Patrick and his linemates to the cleaners. Patrick faced Frolik for just 2:48 minutes, but was gashed for nine shot attempts against in the matchup and generated just one Flyers attempt of the line’s own.

The Flyers’ third line struggled against basically everyone on the Flames, but it was especially noticeable in those shifts versus Backlund. At this point, the trio of Patrick, Konecny and Weise needs to be heavily sheltered in order to have a chance of success, and that’s hard to do on the road.

8: Patrick is becoming an issue

After two straight extremely poor performances, it’s time to address the elephant in the room: the play of much-hyped rookie Nolan Patrick thus far. While Patrick has shown flashes of greatness and actually has scored at a fairly efficient rate at 5-on-5 during his young NHL career (1.65 Points/60), his underlying play-driving metrics have been nothing short of ghastly. By score-adjusted Corsi this season, he’s at 39.84% percent, which is an incredible 10.60 percentage points worse than how the Flyers have driven play with him on the bench. His performance by xG isn’t much better, as he checks in at 44.30%. Last night was maybe his worst game yet. His turnover led to the Flames’ second goal, and his results by Corsi and xG were easily team lows. It was an ugly game for the 19-year-old.

The question is simple: what should the Flyers do about it? Patrick is past the 10-game threshold, so even though he can be sent back to the Brandon Wheat Kings, he’s already burned a year of his entry-level contract. Of course, that shouldn’t stop the team from doing so if they simply feel he’s overmatched at this level. I’m not ready to give up on Patrick as a contributor in 2017-18, though. To my eyes, his biggest issue (last night aside) has been an inability to hold up in battles along the boards, an area in which he thrived in juniors. It seems like Patrick is struggling to adapt to the increased strength and technical savvy of NHL athletes, a problem likely exacerbated by the fact that he hasn’t played much competitive hockey during the 2017 calendar year. That problem might be best addressed at this level, as I’m not sure what going back to the WHL to dominate teenagers will do to help Patrick at this point.

One idea I’ve been turning over in my head — if Patrick is still flailing by the numbers around the end of December, why not give him the go-ahead to play for Team Canada at the World Junior Championships? The competition will be far stronger than that of the WHL, but it would still be a major step down from the NHL. Maybe Patrick could use that time against weaker opponents to rebuild his offensive confidence, providing a springboard for the second half of the Flyers’ season. Right now, it looks like he’s forcing passes and is a step behind the pace of the game, and a dominant tournament against players his own age could provide a spark.

9: Flyers shut things down in the third

Calgary’s late-second-period goal put Philadelphia in a position that just a week ago it had let slip away: a two-goal edge entering the final period of a road game. This time, however, the Flyers didn’t choke that lead away. Instead, they extended their lead back to three and then basically shut down the Flames’ offense for the remainder of the contest.

They were helped, of course, by a five-minute major (and match penalty) given to Travis Hamonic after he made contact with the head of Weise on an open-ice hit. But even after that extended power play had concluded, the Flames had trouble getting any real dangerous offense going. At 5-on-5, they managed just five scoring chances in the period, and none of the high-danger variety. The Flyers actually nearly matched Calgary in regular chances during the period (the Flames led 8-6), despite the fact that Philadelphia led throughout. For a team that certainly seemed fragile during the ten-game losing streak, the Flyers looked calm and in control late in this one while finally ending the skid.

10: No real issue with benching young players late

As the Flyers slowly closed out the game and ended their ten-game skid, a outcry began to arise from fans on social media, who had no interest in just being happy with a long-awaited victory. The focus was on the minutes of key members of the team’s youth movement in the final period of play, specifically Konecny, Patrick and Travis Sanheim. Over the final 20 minutes of play, Konecny did not receive a single shift; Patrick was granted two (both during the major penalty on the PP); Sanheim only one (and it was just 18 seconds long). Even in victory, the limited usage of those three infuriated many fans.

Looking at this game in a vacuum, I had few issues with Hakstol’s decision to avoid using those three youngsters late. Patrick’s play last night (as noted above) was basically a disaster, and I would not have been confident putting him on the ice in a third period in that game even if he was 30 years old. Konecny was far more effective, but the hard truth is that he’s a poor defensive forward at this stage of his career (review the Montour goal above to better understand why). Until his two-way game rounds out, Konecny should be used primarily in close and trailing situations, not when his team is protecting a lead. Sanheim is where I have a bigger issue, but that’s mostly because I believe he’s much better than the coaching staff seems to think he is. Hagg — who is also a rookie and just a year older than Sanheim — receives the minutes I’d prefer to see go to the more talented all-around defenseman. However, I have to acknowledge that Hagg is more responsible in his own end than Sanheim right now, even if the latter spends far less time in that third of the ice due to his strengths elsewhere.

I understand concerns exist that these three players are falling down Hakstol’s depth chart, and am particularly sympathetic to the worries regarding Konecny and Sanheim. The former should have been used heavily in the third period on Saturday while the Flyers trailed, and instead he was essentially benched. When it comes to Sanheim, I realize there is anxiety that he’ll be relegated to the press box once Radko Gudas returns from his suspension, and the 21-year-old’s low recent ice time is hinting that is a possibility. That would clearly be the wrong decision.

However, I do think the idea that these players are seeing their development “ruined” because their coach won’t use them in the third periods of a few games in December is somewhat ridiculous. When staring down the possibility of an 11-game losing streak, the primary focus on the part of the coaching staff has to be getting a win at all costs, and that mentality can even be justified for development purposes as well, as no one wants the kids playing in a losing environment. When Hakstol chooses not to use talented offensive weapons in trailing situations, I get annoyed because it’s making it more difficult for the team to win games. If he eventually starts regularly scratching Konecny or Sanheim, I’ll criticize him because that’s legitimately going to hurt their development. But when he caters their usage to their current strengths and weaknesses? I won’t squawk much about that.

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Top photo: Gerry Thomas/NHLI via Getty Images