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the-master-cylinder · 4 years

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SUMMARY Six girls have been found murdered in the apartment of famed Russian occultist Karl Raymarseivich Raymar and the police cannot explain it. When Raymar’s body was lifted onto a stretcher, bolts of electricity shot out from his fingers. His estranged daughter Olivia McKenna (Melissa Newman) and her husband Allan (Adam West) are unaware of this until they meet Samuel Dockstader (Donald Hotton), a feature writer for The World of the Occult; as a friend of Raymar, Dockstader explains that Raymar was a psychic vampire who gained great powers of telekinesis by kidnapping young girls, terrorizing them, and feeding off the bioenergy they produced. Allan does not believe him, but Dockstader shows Olivia a set of photographs to demonstrate how bioenergy works and gives her an audiotape that outlines his findings, which convinces Olivia to believe him.

Meanwhile, High school student Julie Wells (Meg Tilly) wants to be part of a club entitled The Sisters, which consist of three snobby high school girls named Carol (Robin Evans), Leslie (E. G. Daily), and Kitty (Leslie Speights). Unfortunately, Carol is the ex-girlfriend of Julie’s new boyfriend Steve (David Mason Daniels), and is jealous. She intends to get back at Steve and Julie by making Julie spend a night alone in a mausoleum, unaware that Raymar’s body was just entombed there. That evening, Julie is dropped off by only Carol and Kitty, as Leslie had refused to accompany them on the plan. Julie explores the mausoleum and sets up her sleeping bag, unaware of the cracks that appear around Raymar’s vault.

Carol and Kitty, hoping to scare Julie, dress up in costumes and sneak back into the mausoleum. While they succeed in frightening Julie who locks herself in the chapel, they are unaware that Raymar is slowly reawakening by using his powers to make the walls shake, windows explode, and door slam shut. Before Carol and Kitty decide to leave, Raymar’s powers open up the vaults containing coffins inside and many rotting cadavers telekinetically float and surround the girls before they pile on top of them to suffocate them.

Meanwhile, Steve has gone over to Julie’s house to find her missing. He catches up with Leslie, who reluctantly tells Steve about Julie’s initiation, and Steve angrily heads over to the mausoleum. At the same time, Olivia dashes over after learning about her father’s powers and the possibility that she might also possess them. Back at the mausoleum, Raymar finally breaks out of his coffin and controls the rotting corpses and the doors with his psychic powers. Just when Steve breaks in and finds a hysterical Julie, they become surrounded by the cadavers that advance toward them. Steve tries to fight the corpses, but they knock him out. Raymar pulls a dazed Julie closer to him before Oliva arrives to save her. Ultimately, Olivia takes her compact and reflects the bolts from Raymar’s eyes back at him, causing Raymar and the cadavers to disintegrate, saving Julie and Steve.

The three, including a now traumatized Julie, begin slowly walking out of the mausoleum. The film ends with Kitty’s toothbrush seen near the mound of corpses inside the empty mausoleum before a corpse falls in front and emits a scream.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION Not having much success with selling several comedy screenplays, McLoughlin and his friend Michael Hawes decided to make a gothic horror film similar to the works of Edgar Allan Poe. For inspiration McLoughlin drew upon his experience of exploring the catacombs in Paris, France when he was 19 years old, as McLoughlin recalled years later, “It was the first time that I ever felt psychological or supernatural fear. There was nothing there; there was nobody coming after me; but there was just something about knowing where I was and what I was surrounded by, that gave me a chill that was unforgettable”. McLoughlin and Hawes also came up with the idea of a group of people being trapped inside a mausoleum with a “psychic vampire” that fed on the life energy of the other members of the group.

After a period of four years failing to sell the script to various studios McLoughlin and Hawes found a group of investors. Tom Burman, told them about the Com World Group, the project finally took flight. Com World is a production company that had originally expressed interest in Burman’s own project, Footsteps, a motorcycle story, but the time and the weather were not optimum to begin the picture, so Tom suggested they do McLoughlin and Hawes’ story. “We came close to getting it off the ground awhile before Com World came along,” says McLoughlin, “but Friday the 13th hit and everybody kept asking for more blood and gore, and that’s not what the story’s about. It’s a fantasy story, not a murder story of ‘who gets it next?’ In fact,” smiles McLoughlin somewhat roguishly, “there’s no blood, no nudity, and no profanity in this film …just pus.”

“We finally did get the money, it actually came from a Mormon businessman who needed a tax shelter instantly,” recalls McLoughlin. “It was like, ‘Can you get this thing going in three weeks from right now? And then we have to show it in the Bahamas to qualify for the tax shelter before Christmas.’” Fortunately, McLoughlin had already storyboarded the entire film and knew exactly what he wanted the movie to be, should he ever get the chance to direct it.

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On the set of One Dark Night, the electricity metaphor becomes a reality as the effects crew sets up for the intense finale of the picture. A Tessla coil, a device that can turn 120 volts of household current into 300,000 volts of leaping lightning, is carefully placed and tested. Moments later the scene is shot, the second assistant director yells “Wrap!” and the unknown film crew strikes the set. The mood of the picture is very strange and other worldly. Extreme lighting effects are used to cast large shadows upon the walls of the mausoleum, giving a feeling of foreboding. “What we were trying to do here,” says director McLoughlin, “was to create an Edgar Allen Poe-ish feeling that progresses, getting eerier and eerier. When Julie first gets to the mausoleum there is still daylight, so everything is still fairly normal-looking; but as night comes, jagged pools of light begin to form and things begin to seem more and more bizarre.”

Designed and built by art director Craig Stearns and his amazing assistants, the interior mausoleum set, made of masonite, plywood and plastic, is a perfect replica of the Hollywood Mausoleum, where the story takes place. It took three weeks to construct, and one week to “marble-ize”. “Ordinarily,” says Stearns, “we would have just wallpapered it with a standard marble design, but we had to match the existing mausoleum,” which wasn’t all that easy, considering that they had to find a paint that would adhere to the masonite and also give the proper effect.

Michael Hawes on the set of One Dark Night

Apparently, Stearns and his group did a more than adequate job. Relates producer Mike Schroeder, “I was looking at the dailies with an acquaintance who said ‘This is great, but when are you going to show me the stuff done on the set?’ I explained to her that she had been watching it for nearly an hour.”

Part of the reason why One Dark Night worked out so inexpensively and so quickly is that the people who worked on it — cast and crew members all here are all professionals. Art director Stearns learned his lessons in dealing with small budgets from a true master of the low-budget thriller, John Carpenter. Stearns helped create sets for Halloween, The Fog, and Precinct 13. Hal Trussel’s experience in lighting design and as a student and protege of cinematographer Nestor Almendros lent a great deal to his debut as director of photography on RIP. Then there is producer/unit production manager Michael Schroeder, whose background is mainly in educational television and films in Utah. RIP is his first feature also, but his incredible efficiency gives absolutely no indication of that.

New faces and not-so-new faces make up the principal cast of RIP. Eighteen-year-old Meg Tilly, who has the role of the victimized Julie in the picture, has only been acting professionally for a little over a year, but her list of credits is already impressive. It includes Tex with Matt Dillon, and several television guest spots, as on the Jessica Novak series and After School Specials. Intelligent and very talented, Meg likes the idea of One Dark Night. “When I first read it,” she says, “I felt that there was more to it than just your usual gory horror movie. It’s more like an old-fashioned horror film.”

David Mason Daniels, who plays Julie’s boyfriend, has been a jack-of-all trades to keep his family afloat while he searched out acting jobs. “The worst times,” David recounts, “were when my wife was seven months pregnant and we were delivering phone books door to door at seven cents apiece.” The hard times seem to have paid off pretty well; David’s credits include Harry’s War, and a myriad of television commercials. “I was also saved by Wonder Woman once,” laughs the handsome young Daniels. As far as One Dark Night goes, he is quite pleased to be a part of “Demolition Bodies,” as he jokingly refers to it.

Tom McLoughlin on the set of One Dark Night

Raymar’s daughter, Olivia, is played by Melissa Newman, who greatly appreciates that there is little violence in the film, but will not dismiss the revolting corpses as being ineffective. “I’ve got a weak stomach,” she chuckles, “and there were times that I wasn’t sure if I could actually do some of the scenes because the effects were so gross!” she says, unwittingly testifying to the effectiveness of Tom Burman’s work. Melissa’s background in acting goes back about fifteen years or so to when she was first under contract at 20th Century Fox at the age of 16. She married quite early and was therefore retired for about 10 years, after which she decided to go back to acting. Her later credits include Robert Fuest’s Revenge of the Stepford Wives (TV Movie 1980), and other TV fare, She really enjoyed herself doing One Dark Night. “I had forgotten how fun acting can be,” she smiles.

But the film’s most familiar face belongs to Adam West. “If there’s any place to be in this business, it’s with a hot young director and a good property-and Tom McLoughlin is a hot director,” says West. Adam plays Olivia’s husband, a lawyer named Allan, and though it is a relatively small part, West’s professionalism and enthusiasm carry over to the other players and crew. “I’ve never done a horror picture before,” says Adam, who has recently finished two science-fiction features and two television pilots. “I wanted to do something different, and this is certainly it.” West goes on, “This is a different kind of a scare picture; very gothic and full of the things that really get to you. I’m very excited about it.”

None of the cast members wanted to be part of another “hack-em-to-pieces” feature. They all had felt that RIP was a worthwhile story and, just possibly, the beginning of a back-to-basics movement in the horror genre. “The thing! find intriguing about this picture,” says David Daniels, “is that they’ve done such a tremendous job with suspense and thrills without resorting to violent atrocities.”

Tom McLoughlin has nothing but praise for his actors. “They really make the film,” he says. “This movie is not so much what the gross things are that are chasing after them, it’s the characters’ reactions to them.” Tom cites the performances of Robin Evans and Leslie Speights, both newcomers to feature films who play the instigators of the hazing that helps start all the trouble, as being very, very good. “Especially,” Tom goes on, because they had been around the effects crew and had time to get used to the corpses. They know it’s rubber and that the pus isn’t real, but when they cross over that line and get into the reality of it, it’s so scary to them that it comes through the acting-and that’s terrifying to watch.” Tom admits that after having directed the girls and then seeing the shots on the screen-without seeing the cutaways to the disgusting corpses – he gets very tense just watching the terror of the girls’ response.

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One Dark Night is a visual film. Approximately 80 percent of it is without dialogue. The main reason for this is McLoughlin’s extensive mime background. His uncanny knack for non-verbal communication is what propels the film. Co-writer Mike Hawes is also quite learned in the area of mime. Together they have written a visual treat that brims with detail. “As director,” says Tom, “I tried to infuse slightly magnified bits of reality into non-real situations, such as the neighbors coming to their windows to see what’s going on. Yet, by the same token, I wanted to convey a very strange and macabre feeling all through it.” An example of this is the opening sequence of the film – the teaser-showing the exterior of Raymar’s skid row abode after seven bodies had been discovered there. For this scene Tom requested seven coroner’s vans. He was informed that there are only three in the whole of Los Angeles County, so he had his art department make them up. Says Tom, “One coroner’s van, which could probably handle the seven bodies if they piled them, is not very cinematic. On the other hand, seven coroner’s vans, while they may be a bit much if you think about it, are cinematic. But in the movie you don’t get time to think about it.”

In their research for the screenplay, McLoughlin and Hawes talked with psychics and read all the books and papers they could find on psychic phenomena-especially those written on discoveries made behind the iron curtain. “Everything we’ve touched upon in the story that has to do with psychic phenomena has been documented and is real. It actually occurs. We just took it to its fantasy extreme,” Tom says. “I think the maniac-with the-knife theme has pretty much exhausted whatever it has to offer, which is basically new and imaginative ways of doing someone in.” By combining psychic horror with gothic horror, Tom McLoughlin and Mike Hawes have attempted to start a new trend in horror filmmaking: finding new and imaginative ways to scare people.

POST PRODUCTION During the film’s post production the film was taken out of McLoughlin’s hands and re-cut with the original ending removed. As McLoughlin recalled, “There was a version of the movie that wasn’t shown in theaters, where there was this passing of Ramar’s energies to the Meg Tilly character… check out the end when Meg is walking out and walks down the hall. The close-up of her eyes are the contacts of Nastassja Kinski’s from the Cat People remake, courtesy of make-up man Tom Burman. “[Tom] put those into Meg’s eyes so there’s this thing where she doesn’t look overly possessed, but it definitely looks like something’s wrong She got whatever Ramar had in her now”.

SPECIAL EFFECTS A throwback to the gothic horror movies of yesteryear, the frights in R.I.P. are less a product of maniacal human misbehavior than of our own basic fears of the unknown and claustrophobia; and though the special effects are among the best that Burman has yet to come up with, they are not relied upon to mask a poorly written screenplay. To the contrary, the effects enhance and augment a fine piece of storytelling.

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The Burman Studio and Cosmekinetics put together some wonderful representations of Raymar’s bioenergy-gone-awry-in-the-mausoleum. Though Raymar is dead, his spirit lives, by feeding on fear. Raymar’s spirit wants more power, and to gain it, he must frighten the three girls that have come to the mausoleum. To do this, he levitates coffins out of their tombs and sends their occupants floating after the misfortunate trio; and, as the girls become more frightened, Raymar becomes more powerful.

Burman and his gang built, out of latex rubber, 14 corpses; some that have been long dead, and some of more recent vintage. Ellis Burman devised the manner by which they move through the air. “The corpses don’t come to life,” says Tom Burman. “They are manipulated by Raymar, like puppets.” There are no opticals to create the effect of dead things dragging through the air. It is done completely manually with dolly like contraptions that Ellis and his partner came up with.

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RELEASE/DISTRIBUTION McLoughlin’s project started out with a budget of a million dollars, but both Burman and McLoughlin know they could do it for quite a bit less than that, and cut it down substantially. With a 28-day shooting schedule, the picture was brought in for something like $22,000 under the second budget.

The film was conceived and filmed under the title Rest in Peace before Poltergeist, but due to post-production problems, the film was delayed and was released in theaters in 1983 by Comworld Pictures. “The film did so well everyone thought I had the midas touch,” he notes. “I was immediately bombarded with every splatter script in town. A couple weren’t too bad, and I considered doing them, but I had my own project that I was taking around at the time that I was really hot to do.”

One Dark Night (Premier Releasing, 1983). British Quad

One Dark Night (1983) Bob Summers

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CAST/CREW Directed Tom McLoughlin

Produced Michael Schroeder

Written Michael Hawes Tom McLoughlin

Meg Tilly as Julie Wells Melissa Newman as Olivia McKenna Robin Evans as Carol Mason Leslie Speights as Kitty Donald Hotton as Dockstader E.G. Daily as Leslie Winslow

David Mason Daniels as Steve Adam West as Allan McKenna Rhio H. Blair as Coroner

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY dreadcentral.com Fangoria#18 Fangoria#57 A STRANGE IDEA OF ENTERTAINMENT: CONVERSATIONS WITH TOM MCLOUGHLIN

One Dark Night (1983) Retrospective SUMMARY Six girls have been found murdered in the apartment of famed Russian occultist Karl Raymarseivich Raymar and the police cannot explain it.

#80sFilms #80sHORROR

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hellotechsgeeksfan · 4 years

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Ever given Google rolled out present hunt features, it has turned a renowned trend in web design. There are some fun examples online such as Michael Hart’s Google Images app. The techniques are all sincerely candid where even a web developer with assuaging jQuery knowledge can collect adult programming APIs and JSON data.

For this educational, we wish to explain how we can build an identical present hunt web application. Instead of pulling images from Google we can use Instagram that has grown tremendously in usually a few brief years.

This amicable network started off as a mobile app for iOS. Users could take photos and share them with their friends, leave comments, and upload to 3rd celebration networks such as Flickr. The group was recently acquired by Facebook and had published a formula new app for an Android Market. Their userbase has grown tremendously, and now developers can build extraordinary mini-apps usually like this instasearch demo.

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Obtaining API Credentials

Before formulating any plan files we should initial demeanour into a ideas behind Instagram’s API system. You will need a comment to entrance a developer’s portal that offers useful instructions for beginners. All we need to query a Instagram database is a “Client ID”.

In a tip toolbar click a Manage Clients link, afterwards click an immature symbol “Register a New Client”. You’ll need to give a concentration a name, brief description, and website URL. The URL and Redirect URI can be the same value in this instance usually since we don’t need to substantiate any users. Just fill in all a values and beget a new concentration detail.

You’ll see a prolonged fibre of characters named CLIENT ID. We will need this pivotal after on when building a backend script, so we’ll lapse to this section. For now we can start the construction of a jQuery present hunt application.

Default Webpage Content

The tangible HTML is unequivocally slim for a volume of functionality we’re using. Since many of the picture information is appended boldly we usually need a few smaller elements inside a page. This formula is found inside a index.html file.

!doctype html html lang="en" head meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" titleInstagram Photo Instant Search App with jQuery/title meta name="author" content="Jake Rocheleau" integrate rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" book type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"/script book type="text/javascript" src="ajax.js"/script /head body div id="w" territory id="sform" smallNote: No spaces or punctuation allowed. Searches are singular to one(1) keyword./small contention type="text" id="s" name="s" class="sfield" placeholder="Enter a hunt tag..." autocomplete="off" /section territory id="photos"/section /div /body /html

I’m regulating a latest jQuery 1.7.2 library along with dual outmost .css and .js resources. The contention hunt margin has no outdoor form coupling since we don’t wish to ever contention a form and means a page reload. we have infirm a few keystrokes inside a hunt margin so that there are some-more singular restrictions when users are typing.

We will stock all a print information inside a centre territory ID #photos. It keeps a simple HTML purify and easy to read. All a other inner HTML elements will be combined around jQuery, and also private before any new search.

Pulling from an API

I’d like to start initial by formulating an energetic PHP book and afterwards pierce into jQuery. My new record is named instasearch.php that will enclose all a critical backend hooks into an API.

?php header('Content-type: application/json'); $client = "YOURCLIENTIDHERE"; $query = $_POST['q']; $api = "https://api.instagram.com/v1/tags/".$query."/media/recent?client_id=".$client; function get_curl($url) { if(function_exists('curl_init')) { $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0); $output = curl_exec($ch); relate curl_error($ch); curl_close($ch); lapse $output; } else{ lapse file_get_contents($url); } }

The initial line denotes that a piece of lapse information is formatted as JSON instead of plaintext or HTML. This is required for JavaScript functions to review information properly. Afterwards, I’ve got a few variables setup containing a concentration customer ID, user hunt value, and a final API URL. Make certain we refurbish a $client fibre value to compare your possess application.

To entrance this URL information we need to parse a record essence or use cURL functions. The tradition duty get_curl() is usually a tiny bit of formula that checks opposite a stream PHP configuration.

If we do not have cURL activated this will try to activate a underline and lift information around their possess functions library. Otherwise, we can simply use file_get_contents() that tends to be slower, though still works usually as well. Then we can indeed lift this information into a non-static like so:

$response = get_curl($api);

Organizing Returning Data

We could usually lapse this strange JSON response from Instagram with all a information installed up. But there is so many additional information and it’s unequivocally irritating to loop by everything. we cite to classify Ajax responses and lift out accurately that pieces of information we need.

First we can set up a vacant array for all images. Then inside a foreach() loop, we’ll lift out a JSON information objects one-by-one. We usually need three(3) specific values that are a $src(full-size picture URL), $thumb(thumbnail picture URL), and $url(unique print permalink).

$images = array(); if($response){ foreach(json_decode($response)-data as $item){ $src = $item-images-standard_resolution-url; $thumb = $item-images-thumbnail-url; $url = $item-link; $images[] = array( "src" = htmlspecialchars($src), "thumb" = htmlspecialchars($thumb), "url" = htmlspecialchars($url) ); } }

Those who are unknown with PHP loops might get mislaid in a process. Don’t concentration so many on these formula snippets if we don’t know a syntax. Our array of images will enclose during many 16-20 singular entries of photos pulled from many new announcement dates. Then we can outlay all this formula onto a page as a jQuery Ajax response.

print_r(str_replace('\/', '/', json_encode($images))); die();

But now that we’ve had a demeanour behind a scenes we can burst into frontend scripting. I’ve combined a record ajax.js that contains a integrate eventuality handlers tied on to a hunt field. If you’re still following adult compartment now afterwards get vehement we so tighten to completion!

jQuery Key Events

When initial opening a request ready() eventuality I’m environment adult a integrate variables. The initial dual act as approach aim selectors for a hunt margin and photos container. I’m also regulating a JavaScript timer to postponement a hunt query until 900 milliseconds after a user has finished typing.

$(document).ready(function(){ var sfield = $("#s"); var enclosure = $("#photos"); var timer;

There are usually dual categorical duty blocks we’re operative with. The primary handler is triggered by a .keydown() eventuality when focused on a hunt field. We initial check if a pivotal formula matches any of a banned key, and if so annul a pivotal event. Otherwise transparent a default timer and wait 900ms before pursuit instaSearch().

/** * keycode glossary * 32 = SPACE * 188 = COMMA * 189 = DASH * 190 = PERIOD * 191 = BACKSLASH * 13 = ENTER * 219 = LEFT BRACKET * 220 = FORWARD SLASH * 221 = RIGHT BRACKET */ $(sfield).keydown(function(e){ if(e.keyCode == '32' || e.keyCode == '188' || e.keyCode == '189' || e.keyCode == '13' || e.keyCode == '190' || e.keyCode == '219' || e.keyCode == '221' || e.keyCode == '191' || e.keyCode == '220') { e.preventDefault(); } else { clearTimeout(timer); timer = setTimeout(function() { instaSearch(); }, 900); } });

Every time we refurbish a value it’ll automatically go fetch new hunt results. There are also many of other pivotal codes we could have blocked from triggering a Ajax duty – though too many for inventory in this tutorial.

The Ajax instaSearch() Function

Inside my new tradition duty we are initial adding a “loading” category onto a hunt field. This category will refurbish a camera idol for a new loading gif image. We also wish to dull any probable information leftover within a photos section. The query non-static is pulled boldly from a stream value entered in a hunt field.

If you’re informed with a .ajax() duty afterwards all these parameters should demeanour familiar. I’m flitting a user hunt parameter “q” as a POST data. Upon success and disaster, we mislay a “loading” category and attach any response behind into a #photos wrapper.

Within a success duty, we are looping by a final JSON response to lift out particular div elements. We can accomplish this looping with a $.each() duty and targeting a response information array. Otherwise, a disaster process will directly outlay any response blunder summary from an Instagram API. And that’s unequivocally all there is to it!

View Demo

Download Source

Final Thoughts

The Instagram group has finished a smashing pursuit scaling such an extensive application. The API can be delayed during times, though response information is always scrupulously formatted and unequivocally easy to work with. we wish this educational can denote that there is a lot of energy operative off 3rd celebration applications.

Unfortunately a stream Instagram hunt queries do not concede some-more than 1 tab during a time. This is tying to a demo, though it positively doesn’t mislay any of a charm. You should check out a live instance above and download a duplicate of my source formula to play around with. Additionally, let us know your thoughts in a post contention area below.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Old School Hockey – Five Takeaways from Flyers 4, Oilers 2

There was something a little bit different about the Flyers last night as they won consecutive games for only the second time all season.

They continued the notion of secondary scoring being key, as they got four more goals from guys not named Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek – a trio that had scored 45.7% of the teams’ goals prior to the last two games.

Well, the rest of the team has now scored nine straight goals for the Flyers – all of them by forwards no less – and unsurprisingly, the Flyers have won two straight.

But that’s not what was different specific to last night. Dave Hakstol finally broke up his top line in Calgary and kept it that way in Edmonton. And yes, it helps spread the offense around, as we’ve been talking about on this blog for about a month.

But that’s not it.

Brian Elliott played another strong game in net for the Flyers – something that has become almost expected. After a slow start in his first half-dozen games, Elliott has been the guy keeping the Flyers in games on most nights with his workman-like approach to goaltending – not flashy, just getting the job done.

But it wasn’t Elliott either.

Nope. It was the Flyers trying to play like the New Jersey Devils, circa 1995.

It was a flashback to a bygone era in the NHL. An era where boring, stifling hockey would put you to sleep on a nightly basis. But, those Devils would beat you with their style that everyone else in the league hated – except them.

The Flyers were at it last night.

One game after beating Calgary but allowing the Flames to take a whopping 80 shot attempts, the Flyers decided to hunker down defensively and really try to frustrate the Edmonton Oilers and their supposedly high-flying offense.

The Oilers only attempted 51 shots. Only 26 actually got on goal. After some of the save performances Elliott’s had to put in recently, he had to feel like this game was merely a part-time shift.

And the Oilers were greatly limited as compared to the Flames because the Flyers decided to change their system a bit last night and bottle up the neutral zone. It made for a much more even game, puck possession-wise, and the Flyers were opportunistic, scoring on their best chances. It was an old-fashioned hockey formula that caught the Oilers by surprise and worked for the Flyers for one game.

Can it work long-term? Maybe. However, it requires a lot of patience and commitment to the defensive game as well as a more conservative approach – things that don’t normally seem attractive as options to today’s younger players.

But if Hakstol is smart, he’ll see if he can get the players to buy into it for a little while anyway to see if it instills confidence in a team who, despite winning two straight games, is still a fragile group when things go awry.

To the takeaways:

1. Rooting your offense in opportunism

This might be the hardest thing about a defensive game plan. Offensive players want to skate. They want to create. They want to do something fun and dazzling.

But, when you ask them to worry about their defensive responsibilities first and foremost ahead of their offensive chances, it could lead to frustration. Guys who want to “go go go” are being muted. Defensemen who are keen to jump up on the rush or pinch in along the wall to create offense must show the self control not to do that.

Instead, you have to be content to punt. There’s no Doug Pederson fourth down bravado in this type of hockey.

Nope, instead you just dump it in deep, let the other team go chase it, and then set your defense and force them to weave their way 200 feet through five players in defensive posture.

It’s not pretty to look at. It makes hockey slower, more muddled. It becomes more like tug of war – or soccer (sorry soccer fans).

But it’s effective. Maddeningly so, but effective.

And it was quite effective last night, especially against Connor McDavid.

McDavid did have an assist; it came shorthanded after he stripped Couturier and created a 2-on-1 that led to a goal by Leon Draisaitl. But at 5-on-5, McDavid was only on the ice for five shots on goal.

That’s five shots on goal by all the players on the ice with and including him.

That’s a fine defensive effort by the Flyers.

There were some people on Twitter last night perplexed as to why the Flyers would award the Ric Flair “Woooo” robe to Andrew MacDonald after this game.

How they played against McDavid is all you need to know.

McDonald wasn’t alone. Ivan Provorov was amazing defensively as well, playing at the same time as MacDonald. However, MacDonald is often the guy who is tasked with taking a man-to-man approach against a star player on the other team, and as such, he was considered the MVP of the game by the guys in his own locker room.

Fans don’t see it that way sometimes, but it is the reality.

That said, I don’t think last night’s successful shutdown of McDavid and his line was all MacDonald’s doing. Nor was it Provorov as well. No, it was the whole five-man unit.

Whichever line was out there against him – while Edmonton, with the last line change, would often try and get McDavid out against Filppula’s line, Hakstol often countered a McDavid shift by changing lines and going with Couturier’s line with Giroux and Wayne Simmonds – did a fine job of being responsible for their coverages to take away Edmonton’s best offensive option.

The Flyers remained committed to this style for the entire 60 minutes, and it worked. It was probably the best overall team effort since shutting out the Blues in St. Louis on Nov. 2.

And when you play this way, you also have to take advantage of the limited chances you are going to get as well and the Flyers did that by converting a power play, creating two scoring chances off turnovers and getting an empty-netter.

It’s how you win. And they did.

2. Captain Fantastic

None of this would have happened without a really fine game by Giroux. As mentioned earlier, his line was out there most of the time against McDavid – especially when the Flyers were changing lines on the fly – getting Giroux and Couturier on the ice for 15 of McDavid’s 23 shifts.

But Giroux was also responsible for creating the opportunistic chances we were talking about.

The first was on the power play when Jordan Weal replaced Simmonds on the first sequence and this happened:

Tic-tac-toe and a Weal goal! http://pic.twitter.com/bfOGjJdV1S

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 7, 2017

This is a set play. Giroux with a slap pass to Couturier who catches it and feeds Weal in front. Kudos to Weal for being in position. Normally that’s where Simmonds would be, but Simmonds had a skate issue, so Weal hopped in.

Credit to Giroux for going with this play, assuming the woeful Edmonton penalty kill (and it is woeful, as it’s the worst in the NHL – killing just 56% at home!) wouldn’t think that with a little guy like Weal the Flyers would look to get him the puck in the blue paint. But they did.

Later, Giroux found another guy he doesn’t normally play with:

Claude Giroux gets the loose puck and gives it to Dale Weise on a line change. His shot makes it 2-1! http://pic.twitter.com/u2Cxdplj9U

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 7, 2017

Yep. Dale Weise scored everyone. That’s a chug the entire beer in your hand… and open a second and do the same in the Flyers drinking game.

But, all kidding aside, there are three things to notice about this play.

First, Giroux out-skating two Edmonton defensemen to a loose puck – and he had a long way to go to get there.

Secondly, having the wherewithal to notice Weise coming off the bench on a line change to get him a pass in good scoring position.

The third thing to notice, and it didn’t have any impact on the play but was definitely something to keep an eye on in the future, Voracek was streaking down the wing uncovered. I don’t think Weise even saw him, because if he did, making the pass to Jake had to be a higher percentage play than shooting five hole from where he did, but the mere vision of Voracek busting it on the wing was all you need to know. The Flyers were 100% all-in last night.

3. Raffl still motoring

Ever since waking up from hibernation a couple weeks ago, Michael Raffl has been a real option for the Flyers.

He is strong on the puck and has a good shot. Hthe kidse just needs to play with a playmaker, and now that he’s playing with Voracek, he might be finding that 20-goal touch he had a few seasons ago.

Here was his latest goal, his fourth in the last seven games, courtesy of a pass from Jake:

Jake Voracek sends Michael Raffl on the breakaway and he scores! 3-1! http://pic.twitter.com/EehtvCGuxR

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 7, 2017

Raffl doesn’t need to suddenly turn into a regular goal scorer. But if he can give the Flyers 15 more goals over the final 50-plus games, that would be a huge boost to the lineup.

4. The kids are alright

Brandon Manning is out of the lineup for about a month with an upper body injury. Radko Gudas can’t play again until Tuesday. So, the defensive corps is going to be really young again.

Sam Morin is hurt, so he can’t be recalled. So for now it’s Mark Alt again. (More on the call-ups in No. 5 below).

This is exactly what Hextall was lamenting about during his impromptu press conference after losing for the eighth straight game at Wells Fargo Center last week – in his mind, it’s not a good idea to trot out such a young defensive corps – because it’s not good for their development.

That’s a cockeyed view point in today’s NHL.

Look around. How old is that Columbus defense?

Yeah, they have two veterans in Jack Johnson and David Savard, but they are rolling out four defenseman under the age of 24 in Ryan Murray, Seth Jones, Zach Werenski and Scott Harrington – and they’re only one point out of first place in the Metropolitan Division.

How about Carolina?

Yeah, they’re in a similar boat as the Flyers near the bottom of the Metro, and yet you don’t hear their GM Ron Francis bitching about how young they are:

Trevor van Riemsdyk – 26

Justin Faulk – 25

Jaccob Slavin – 23

Brett Pesce – 23

Haydin Fleury – 21

Noah Hanifin – 21

As a matter of fact, that’s their future. The Hurricanes’ young D corps could be one of the best in the NHL in a few years. The difference is, they’re playing now. Every day.

Last night, aside from MacDonald, the Flyers trotted out a very young defensive group – and they played really well against a team that, albeit is struggling, was many experts pick to go to the Stanley Cup Final from the West this season because of their high-powered offense.

And yet, the Flyers defense did just fine against them.

I feel like a member of the crowd at the Astrodome in “The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training:”

Or maybe a better comparison is the South Park Cows taking on the Detroit Red Wings:

Yeah… that’s more like it.

5. Loose Pucks

Manning’s injury will keep him out for awhile, but Gudas will be back after sitting out the final game of his suspension tonight in Vancouver. Alt probably will stay in the lineup, but the Flyers did recall local kid T.J. Brennan as the extra defenseman. Brennan grew up in Moorestown, N.J. and has always dreamed about playing for the Flyers. He probably won’t get the chance this time around (he has played in the NHL already with Ottawa), but if there’s another injury on the blue line, he’s next in line until Morin recovers from his injury.

Leave it to Michal Neuvirth to get injured while not even playing. His injury, the lower-body variety, likely occured in practice. So, the Flyers called up Alex Lyon to backup Elliott. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell Lyon plays tonight in Vancouver, even though it’s a back-to-back for the Flyers. Elliott will go again. Good thing he had some light work against Edmonton.

If anyone is going to be affected negatively from a production standpoint by the line jumbling, look for it to be Couturier, who was on a torrid pace before Hakstol finally broke up his top line. Couturier will still get points, playing with Giroux will allow that, and he’ll till score some on the power play, but I expect his goal-scoring pace, which was for more than 40 goals, will slow down some until Voracek is reunited with that line, if ever.

Old School Hockey – Five Takeaways from Flyers 4, Oilers 2 published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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