Latest / Hattrick's Unofficial Flyers Podcast / Episode 15: Flyers vs Red Wings ReCap | Apr 03, 2026
Transcript
- Rick Mullen: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Hatrix on official Flyers podcast. This is Rick Mullin. I'm your host tonight. And we are going to recap the Flyers versus Detroit Red Wings game that happened last night at the Xfinity Mobile Arena. It was a big game last night. ⁓ Flyers needed this win desperately just to set the tone for moving forward. ⁓ ⁓ points that we're missing out on. caught us like badly after we ⁓ lost Washington. ⁓ And, tonight was that night where we were going to make it up. Ernie's two points. was another good night because, Columbus was losing ⁓ and, getting blown out pretty badly by Carolina ⁓ and the Flyers. they had to do was beat Detroit last night to get locked in, I believe on the wild card. ⁓ And they did pull it off ⁓ and ⁓ We're going to talk about that for a little bit. So I was down the game last night and the first period was pretty good period. ⁓ You know, we're to go through some stats right now and let's talk stats and then we'll kind of talk about the game. But there was a lot of things that happened in this game and we're going to cover everything from Marton Mishkoff, ⁓ the referees, Patrick Kane. It was just one of those games. So the Flyers fell. to the Detroit Red Wings, four to two. The Flyers had 34 shots to Detroit's 19. Two games in the row, the Flyers only gave up like 18 or 19 shots, but we gave up what, five, six goals last game in 18 shots. And last night with 19 shots by Detroit, we gave up four. ⁓ Flyers out hit Detroit 31 to 21. penalty minutes on the Flyers were four, penalty minutes on Detroit were two. Flyers and Detroit shared the face-off percentage. They both had 50%, so they split that at the face-off dot. But going out there, the first game, the place was pretty packed. ⁓ Everybody wanted to get in there and see Marton play his first home game, and tickets were sold out. was a... It was a full arena and it was pretty loud. I mean, the crowd was ready, you know, right from the beginning and they were loud. The refs started taking this game away from the Flyers pretty horribly. And I know this is not an excuse for why we lost. There's a lot more to it, but the Flyers played pretty good in that first period. But the referees absolutely were terrible, absolutely terrible. They were getting booed. Ref sucks right from the beginning. The chance. They missed everything. ⁓ The Flyers, believe throughout the game, I saw a few. saw boardings. I saw some hooks. I believe one of the Red Wings actually grabbed, I think it was Barkey and like grabbed them, mugged them and threw them down on the ice. No call. They were missing everything. was like they were out to get the Flyers last night and it was an absolutely one-sided game there. The Flyers played for the most part pretty clean. If they even touched a Detroit player, they went to the box. There was a phantom call or a Marton. He got a penalty. Couturier got one for, I think it was tripping, which he kind of did a little bit there. So, I mean, that's okay. The Marton one was terrible. And then all the missed ones by these refs last night were horrible. Just horrible. And I'm going to start with the rest because it's driving me crazy. drove home from that game last night thinking like, you know, yeah, we lost. Got it. the refs actually changed the way that game was played. You know, like the Flyers may have gotten probably two or three power plays in that game. Not that they would have scored on it, but They should have had two or three more power plays in that game that may have just slowed down Detroit enough to not get a couple of goals on us. And, because they weren't called that gave, you know, Detroit more time on the ice, full strength. ⁓ it was it was just horrible calling. ⁓ then Martona, guess, couldn't he got a penalty and it was really weak. And he had said something to ⁓ I think I think the ref's name was Corey Beecher, if that's what I'm getting, because his name's like Blast it all across the podcast and social media right now for what he did to Marton but Marton must have been questioning one of his calls or saying something to him and this ref went over grabbed him by his back and yelled in his face and you know if you can lip read ⁓ it said it looked like he told him to shut the ⁓ up ⁓ and at like in his face like unprofessional that guy should be suspended he should be docked pay you don't do that you just don't do that you know if you're mad at a player and the players not like in your face and there's no reason to grab them one you shouldn't lay your hands on them and then two you know you can yell at them from across the ice and tell them to get in the box or do what you want to do but how this how this ref performed last night was absolutely terrible he should be suspended he should get a fine yeah yeah Maybe I'm getting carried away there, but I just did not like seeing it. You have a kid coming in his second game in the league and you're going to manhandle him and scream in his face for nothing. So, terrible, terribly, terribly officiated game last night. Frustrated the hell out of me. So anyhow, with that said, the Flyers played hard. They really did. They came out that first period. They played hard, you know, they fell behind. Of course they gave up that first goal to Alex to bring it in. I think it was like 1849 marker. The first Alex, the blanket scores Alex to break. always seems to score on us. You know, it's he's a killer just like Patrick Kane. Tyson Forster like going into the second period, 31 seconds into the second period. Tyson Forster who's back from what a 41 game. ⁓ injury, he comes in and I think Tippett went to take a shot but kind of whiffed in the puck rolled over to Tyson Forrester and in all honesty, Forrester threw it at the net but he didn't even have a really hard shot. He kind of just threw it and it was kind of soft but it really caught Gibson off. I guess it was like a change up in baseball. Kind of just floated in at him, went over his shoulder and Tyson Forrester is on the board with his 11th goal of the year. It was really good to see Tyson Forrester back. know, he was he was missed. That big body. He's smart. He's got good hands. He's got a great shot. It was nice to see him. 1829 left of the second period or at the 1829 mark of the second period, Lucas Raymond scores. I'm sorry. Detroit goes back up two to one. And, it it was wasn't pretty like some of these goals, Erson. Erson definitely missed one of these goals that he probably should have stopped. It just seemed like same old slow milk. Like Flyers are chasing, we're going into the third period now. 937 into the third period, Patrick Kane, he gets one, know, Kane the Flyers killer. That's all I can say. This guy just went, the game's on the line for the Flyers. Patrick Kane, if he's on the ice, always seems to put that nail in the coffin for the Flyers and he did last night. Travis Koneckny scored in the third period, made it three to two and then like a couple seconds later, Alex Debrink it again, scores a second for the night and puts the Flyers away four to two. Difficult game to watch. It was frustrating. There was a lot on the line. When you watch back to back games like we just did against the Capitals and you think, that game we have to win, like they need to play harder and then, and then they don't, they lose. This game had all eyes on it. Like, you know, all eyes on the Detroit game. Like this is the one, okay, fine. We lost the Capitals, but when we see the Red Wings on Thursday night, we got to take it to them. We got to get that win. We got to get these points on these other teams that were chasing and lo and behold, we come out. and don't win this one either. And it just seems like that this team, when the game matters, it's that one game, like you gotta win this game tonight to get to the next level, they just can't seem to get to that win. I don't know if they're grasping their sticks a little too tight or they're nervous or what's going on, but. It's not like they didn't have chances. You know, they had 34 shots. They had a lot of time down in the Detroit's end. ⁓ They just they just couldn't score. They just couldn't score. And it hurts when you can't score. And you have a lot of these veteran players right now that they're not really doing much ⁓ in the last two games, you know. So like Tippett didn't have a great game. But when you start really like watching. Even with the Capitals, when you watch the Capitals and last night against Detroit, these teams are now trying to kind of like man on man on Tippett. Before they would play like a zone and Tippett would have a good 10 feet where he could get the puck and start getting his legs moving and get down the ice and make moves and get the puck in the zones. But these last two games, if you watch them pretty much, the other teams are man on manning him. They're putting somebody really close to him so when he gets that He don't have the time to get those jets burning and they're kind of I think marking them like McDavid and you know, funny to say that McDavid and Tippett in the same sentence, but That's what they're doing. They're taking that ice away from him So he can't get those engines revved up and you know, he's not looking as dominant as he has for a while now so, you know, they found a way to shut down Tippett, you know connect the Got a goal, which is real good. He's still on the board and you know, TK looks like a huge leader out there right now. He's he's leading the charge. He's helping protect the kids. He's doing everything he can to try to win. But then everybody else is kind of just gone, you know, gone like I I question Travis Sandheim a little bit. I watched him last night like break into the zone and he went up the left side and he had a perfect opportunity to just maybe. cut a little bit towards the slot and like rip a shot and instead he won't shoot like he just takes the puck deep into the corner and he ends up losing it and going back to the point. But Travis Sandheim just kind of lost all his offense. He's not he's not shooting. He's not trying to drive that net. He's just trying to go wide and I guess wait for something to create with other players. But it's not happening. So there's there's guys who have opportunities to shoot. And they're not shooting. I think TK was even doing that last night a little bit. I think, had a two on one with Dvorak and he had a pretty good angle. And instead of taking that shot, he passed it over to Dvorak and Devo just, I don't even think he got the shot off. So there's a lot of things going on, I think, with these flyers offense. Matvei Mishkov, let's talk a little bit about him right now. ⁓ He's been just gone. see him much. He's not relevant to plays. He does make a really good play here and there where we're past not a shot or anything, you know, we'll see something open in the ice where maybe somebody else wouldn't have seen he plays the puck out there and he's making some really creative plays. But when we have talked in the past about Matt Vey and you know, even when you see other people talking about Matt Vey, the first thing they're saying is like, he's like a Kucherov kind of player. And that's a huge, huge upside which Mishkov is not showing yet. And I'm not saying he's not going to get there. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. If he does, that's incredible. But chances of him hitting a Kucherov level are probably not great. But if he can be an 80, 100 point player, that's fantastic. But right now, when you look at what we have, we have ⁓ Foster and Marton back, two big shooters. And then you have a guy like Mishkov who is an absolute playmaker. know, he's the guy who's trying to create that sweet pass to somebody who can stuff the net. And obviously Mishkov wants to score too, like he always talking about scoring. comparing him to Kucherov, Kucherov is trying to make that play. He's trying to make that pass. He's trying to create something. And so is Mishkov. And sadly, the line he's on You know, and yeah, he gels here and there with them, but the line he's on, he doesn't really have a shooter. He doesn't have a shooter on that line. He's got Cates. And what do you have? Grunström last night? ⁓ Not conducive to his play, in my opinion. And then you look at a Marton and ⁓ Forster and you think, you know what? Forster should probably be on the line with Cates and Mishkoff. Forster is used to playing with Cates. And Mishkoff is a setup guy. So if we have a guy who can fire that puck like Forster, to me, that's a no brainer. You you're wasting Mishkoff on a line with no shooter when he's probably one of your most creative passers. And you can't do that, in my opinion. I think you need to juggle him and find a shooter for him that he can set up. If it's Marton... Right now, don't think it is like I think Marton needs some more time and he's doing right really well where he's at. But Forster should be paired with Mishkoff. And I really do think within a couple of games of doing that Mishkoff and Forster would really click. I'd like to see it. I'd love to see Taki give it a try. It's hard watching Mishkoff get this pocket. No. And because you can see it, he knows he can't beat these players. He's not getting around them. So he's picking his head up and he's looking for that trail. He's looking for that pass. you know, even if he can get the pass to the guy, a lot of times the guy that's receiving the pass can't do anything with it. He can't get a shot where a Marton or a Forster, he could just rip it like one time. They've got bullets. So I think we're missing out on seeing Mishkov trying to set up one of Marton or Forster. And I'd like to see a little bit of a line change there. to give him an opportunity, not just for a shift or two, give him a game, give him a game, see what they can do and if they can click. If you need to move Forster down to the Mishkov-Kates line, that's fine. Like I said, Kates and Forster have some history together, so they might be able to work strong together as well as Mishkov setting up Forster. But I really think to up our offensive production that that's it. change, little change that is worth taking a stab at to see if it works and create some chemistry. ⁓ Martone. Let's talk about Martone for a few minutes now. ⁓ Martone. Man, I am so excited by Martone. Martone is such an incredible player. He's 19 years old. He had nine shots on that last night. Nine. He had five, I believe, the other night. You know, that's 14 shots on that in two games and they're not. You know, outside low, you know, shots, they are high quality slot shots. He had nine of them. I was sitting right behind the ⁓ Gibson last night that the, know, the fire shot at the net twice. I'm sitting right behind Gibson and I'm watching more tone rip these wrist shots. And I believe he hit. two butt ends on Gibson last night, like shooting for that far corner. And sooner or later, they're going to go in. Like this kid has really good vision. He's firing that puck really well. And those two butt ends were luck. It's luck. The goalie didn't move. You just heard it, boom, smack off the button and deflect away. Marton is going to be so good for us. You know, I can't wait till this kid gets like one or two more years under his belt He really is he is going to be the leader on this team. He's going to be the best player on this team and sadly last podcast I Said that he was going to score last night and you could book it and I jinxed the kid So you can hold that against me. I'll take the blame I I said, Mark my words, he's scoring that last game against Detroit and he didn't. He almost did. You know, there was a thought that he scored that goal, but they gave it to TK because Marton shot it, it hit TK and it went in the net. So they gave the goal to TK, but my fault, Marton did not score last night. And I'll take all the blame, but nine shots. This kid was exciting to watch. He played really well. He mucked it up. He made some really good plays. He had some soft hands in the neutral zone trying to, you know, pass over for breakouts. And I think we have some really good things going here on this team. ⁓ Erson, he looked normal again last night. He'd stand on his head, make a couple of few really good saves and then. He'd be out of position for like a short side shot by Patrick Kane who just stuffed like pretty much an open net and ⁓ you know, Erson's Erson. You know, you're not going to win unless you out shoot these people by a lot. And ⁓ we are, but sadly we're not scoring and that's where it goes back down to maybe we need to spread that out a little bit. You know, take advantage of a Mishka Forster or Mishka Martone. I'd rather see Mishkoff short forester. That's my opinion for right now. But ⁓ I think the Flyers need to make a little bit of roster adjustments, give Mishkoff the opportunity to be a setup man for these guys and go from there. So anyhow, the Flyers are not looking great here for a playoff push. know, Columbus did lose last night. Flyers lost last night. We're not making up any ground. The wild card's a lot harder to hit at this point. The Flyers, I think, would have to run the table now, no losses. So I think their focus now is on coming in third place in the Metro, which can be done. It could be done. Things have to fall right, but it could be done. And it starts tonight. The Flyers, biggest game of the night, biggest game of the year. The Flyers have to beat the New York Islanders in regular time tonight. We need those two points and we need them to get none. So the Flyers season, in my opinion, is on the line tonight. This is the biggest game they have to win. They got a they got to win tonight. It's a little scary because Sorokin is in that and the Flyers struggle with him. You know, they just seem to not be able to score on him. And I think the Flyers got to come up with a plan. And like I said, a good plan for tonight's game would be to switch Mishkoff up. get him out there with Tyson Forrester and let's see if they can create a little bit of magic. I think Marton with the connect me line is going to be okay. You know, they're figuring it out. Marton had nine shots. So it's not like they're generating no shots. He had nine good quality shots. So if they keep up, he's going to eventually start potting some goals. If we can get Mishkoff and Forrester together to get a little chemistry and see if they can pot a couple of goals. I think it would be a totally different. team for us out there on the ice. So somehow they have to beat Siroken. They got to get some people in front of that net. They're going to have to try to blind them. They're going to have to try to get some tip ins, some rebounds, but they got to take it to Siroken tonight. They can't be shooting from the outside. They have to have net front presence if they're going to win this game. I am hoping the Flyers know that. I'm hoping they go out and they destroy New York Islanders tonight. And I hope when we recap that game, we're recapping a flyers win. Okay. Also, one thing I went to the ⁓ Xfinity Mobile Arena last night and I've never been up inside the assembly room, not once. And I heard ⁓ another show that I listen to a lot, which is a Snow Dugali and Rush Joy and Bundy and Ant talking. And they had said, hey, come up and see us at the assembly room. So I checked into the center or the arena. And I did, I went up to the assembly room and man, it was a really nice place. You know, you get to walk around a little bit, you get to see some, it was the closest I've ever been to the banners. You're basically, you know, straight on looking at all the Hall of Fame banners, that nice bar up there. And I got to see the Snow the Goalie show. I had a few minutes to actually talk with Rush Joy and a really, really nice guy. You know, we talked for a little bit, not a ton. but he's a really nice guy. I kind of told him about our podcast and he was really nice. He said, hey, send it to me. Let me take a listen to it. And I told him, I'm just a hack. I'm just starting. It's just my way of talking hockey because I don't have a lot of people to talk to about hockey. And this is my way to get it out there and vent a little bit and get my thoughts out. And he was really, really nice. hopefully if you guys don't listen to Snow The Goalie, Definitely put them on a follow and like, subscribe and listen to them. So anyhow, tonight, big, big game, Flyers versus Islanders. We'll be back again probably tomorrow or maybe tonight after the game to do a recap. But everybody out there, say a prayer to the hockey gods. Let's get this Flyers team a big win tonight and talk about a huge win tomorrow and maybe a increase in our standings after tonight. So until then, please like and subscribe, find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple. We have a website, go to our website and subscribe. This way you'll see all the shows coming down until tomorrow. Go Flyers.