The New York Islanders fell 5-2 to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night in the penultimate game of their preseason schedule.
Karson Kuhlman and Brian Pinho scored for the Islanders, but it was not enough to counter goals from Nicolas Deslauriers, Noah Cates, Owen Tippett, Travis Konecny (1G, 1A) and Cam Atkinson.
With the loss, the Isles fall to 2-3-0 in preseason play, with their final exhibition contest coming on Friday night vs New Jersey.
FLYERS NHL ROSTER ROUTS ISLES INEXPERIENCE:
The Flyers, who are down to 26 skaters in training camp, iced something very close to their opening night roster on Thursday, with veterans such as Cam Atkinson, Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim all dressed.
The Islanders took a different approach, bringing an inexperienced lineup, partially in a bid for Lane Lambert and co to evaluate young forwards – like Matt Maggio, William Dufour and Arnaud Durandeau – against NHL regulars.
That contributed to the lopsided score and shot totals, as the Isles were outshot 27-10 through two periods of play and 31-16 in the game.
“We’re evaluating and making some decisions,” Head Coach Lane Lambert said. “Some people are here for a reason and we found out some more about other people.”
The experience gap showed up in the types of goals the Flyers scored. Nicolas Deslauriers got a second whack at a Garnet Hathaway rebound at the side of the net to tie score 1-1 at 15:15, while Noah Cates finished off a Konecny centering feed off an odd-man rush at 16:24 of the first.
Owen Tippet beat Semyon Varlamov on a breakaway at 8:14 of the second period, while Konecny finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play on a Flyers’ two-man advantage at 18:45 to make it 4-1.
“Far too often tonight when we were in on the forecheck we turned off people and we’re guessing,” Lambert said. “That’s not our hockey, that’s not our hockey team and that’s not how we play hockey.”
While no roster is confirmed for Friday night, the Isles will likely have a more veteran lineup to wrap preseason. That said, it was a worthwhile experience for players like Maggio.
“It’s huge, you want to play preseason games so you get experience and kind of know what it takes to play in the league,” Maggio said. “When you play a full NHL team it kind of shows you where you’re at and what you need to improve on.”
