5 takeaways: Travis Sanheim’s debut adds to mix as Flyers try to figure out defense

LOS ANGELES — A few of the Flyers defensemen have taken things to overtime.

The team is approaching the third game of the season, is carrying eight defensemen — which is one more than they prefer — and don’t seem to know which piece doesn’t fit. They’re all different.

Thursday night, in a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, it was Travis Sanheim’s turn to go while Samuel Morin and Brandon Manning sat in the press box and Robert Hagg was in the lineup for his third career NHL game.

“We’ll talk on the bus here and make decisions when time’s appropriate,” general manager Ron Hextall said. “Obviously Manning played and then Sanheim played. We’ll see where it goes. I don’t have the answer. If you want a definitive answer, I don’t have one for you.

“As I told you guys all summer and at the start of the year, these kids are not gonna sit around. It’s not the right thing to do.”

Eventually Sanheim found his game in his debut, but was his own worst critic.

“I was pretty disappointed with my effort,” he said after logging just under 11 minutes and was on the ice for both Kings goals. “I thought I could play a lot better. I started to feel a little more comfortable in the third, started to get my feet under me and started to play more of my game and getting up in the ice, making plays. I kind of wish I could of done that early, but obviously with that being my first game I was a little hesitant early and I wish I could go back and tell myself I could get a lot more comfortable and start getting up in the ice and play my game.”

The first goal came early in the second period when Scott Laughton coughed up the puck in the neutral zone and the Kings came in the zone with numbers. Nick Shore found Trevor Lewis, who found his way behind Sanheim and one-timed the puck past Michal Neuvirth.  

Late in the second period Sanheim took a double-minor for high-sticking Lewis. The Flyers killed off the penalty and when he emerged from the box, Sanheim looked far more comfortable. He was pinching into the offensive zone and tried creating plays.

Nothing got behind Jonathan Quick, who had a 35-save shutout.

“Actually there’s lots of good to say,” coach Dave Hakstol said of Sanheim’s game. “This is a tough building and a tough environment to play your first NHL game. I really like the way Travis, the way he stayed with it. I thought he started to play his game in the latter half of the second period and in the third period. That’s a positive. There’s gonna be some jitters…for the young guys. There’s always gonna be some jitters there when you step out there for the first time. He worked through it and did a good job as he grew into the third period.”

Last year some of the Flyers’ young players feared that a mistake on the ice would land them in the press box.

Points certainly matter in October, but there’s no playoff crunch adding to the stress.

“I’m trying not to worry about that too much,” Sanheim said. “Mistakes are going to happen and I think the biggest thing is learning from them. Just like the one I made tonight, I’ve got to regroup and make sure my next shift is a good one.”

At some point Sanheim will get another shot. And at some point, the Flyers will also send one player to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

“We’re not going to (carry eight defensemen), but I don’t have a timeline necessarily,” Hextall said. “Could be tomorrow or a week from now or two weeks from now.”

Here are four other takeaways from the loss in Los Angeles…

A new wrinkle

There was no prolific power play to bail the Flyers out of Quick’s shutout Thursday. They went 0-for-5, but looked like they could adjust.

Last season their power play became stale and most of the league knew it. The “umbrella” system they helped make a classic wasn’t as effective even if Brayden Schenn did tie for the league lead with 17 power-play goals.

Against the Kings the Flyers started creating plays from behind the net. It didn’t beat Quick, but they moved the puck well from there.

“I think it depends who we’re playing. It depends how they kill penalties,” captain Claude Giroux said. “We’re just trying to be creative here. It’s a long season here. You gotta find a way to surprise their penalty killing by bringing another tool and that’s what we’re trying to do there. (Wayne Simmonds) had a great chance. We’re just trying to move around there.”

“It was an adjustment,” Jake Voracek added. “It’s what we saw that we thought could work and we had a couple good looks. It made them think about something else as well. I think if we got a goal on the power-play nobody would be surprised. Unfortunately we didn’t. There’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve got to refocus on Saturday.”

Generating more shots

Hakstol’s immediate reaction after the game was to say that the Flyers produced more against the Kings in a loss than they did a night earlier in a 5-3 win over the San Jose Sharks. He didn’t have the benefit of re-watching the game although surely, he did have some level of briefing with whatever statistics the Flyers use.

They had three more shots at even strength, but in terms of shot attempts, they were actually three shy of their win in the Shark Tank. In the third period they outshot the Kings 17-5, but a couple more opportunities didn’t even find the net.  

“Could we have played better? Yeah, but we played well and certainly created enough chances to win,” Hextall said. “Now in saying that, we’ve got to execute, too. We had two or three 2-on-1s where we didn’t get a shot on net. That can’t happen.”

Neuvirth sharp

Goalie Michal Neuvirth didn’t play in the preseason finale like he was slated to. It didn’t seem to matter because there was hardly any rust to his game. He made 25 saves and was very sound in his technique.

His best stop of the night was a complete desperation save on Anze Kopitar in the first period after he one-timed a feed from Alex Iafallo.

“I read the play and I covered the short side and I bumped off the post,” Neuvirth said. “It basically hit my glove.”

Was it his best ever? Voracek, Neuvirth’s countryman, has seen a lot of him from their days in youth hockey to the NHL and Voracek has a good memory.

“I think you cannot top that save two years ago against Minnesota,” Voracek said. “Two years ago against Minny, there was a couple seconds left and he stopped it on the goalline. It was one of the reasons we made the playoffs that year.”

Aggressive penalty kill

Two games isn’t a great sample size, but it sure seems evident that the Flyers’ forwards on the penalty kill have more leeway to put pressure on the guys with the puck at the point. There’s far less time for opponents to operate through 120 minutes of hockey.

Part of that is Scott Laughton and Taylor Leier, the top two penalty killers so far.

“It’s particular to the different pairs,” Hakstol explained. “You have to have some cohesion between those groups. Simmer and (Sean Couturier) do a good job together. They kill a little bit differently than what Laughts and Leiersy do. Partly because of the pace, but also the way they read off each other, they tend to put a little bit more pressure up-ice and sustain a little more of that pressure.”

Dave Isaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com