Travis Sanheim carried the defensive workload again, Ivan Fedotov made some highlight-reel saves under the primetime spotlight, and the Flyers kept pace with the hard-checking Carolina Hurricanes through the first two periods Wednesday night at the Wells Fargo Center...
But they couldn't hold it together. Carolina rallied for three goals in the early part of the third period, and the Flyers still just don't have the offensive talent or cohesion to consistently work themselves out of that type of situation.
They lost, 4-1, dropping their second straight of a five-game homestand and to 8-10-2 on the season.
There's some good going on, but the Flyers are very much working through a lot of continued struggles, and in a position where their most dependable strategy for right now is to outwork whoever's in front of them.
"We just need to manage the puck better," head coach John Tortorella said postgame. "Against these teams, Colorado, Carolina, and we got one coming next week in Vegas, we have to manage the puck better. Just too many turnovers."
The Hurricanes scored 30 seconds in on a Jalen Chatfield shot that Ivan Fedotov couldn't see through traffic, but for the most part, the Flyers stayed with them through the opening period.
Matvei Michkov was especially aggressive in the early going.
On a power play from an Andrei Svechnikov crosscheck, the rookie star just missed to the outside of the net on a Travis Konecny pass across the crease, on a sequence kickstarted by a slick move from Travis Sanheim in the high slot to work the puck closer down. Michkov recovered the puck, but the leg pad of Carolina goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov was already down to seal off the gap, so Michkov couldn't try to jam it home.
Later on, Kochetkov went behind his net to handle the puck, but fumbled it and got stuck trying to get another handle on it. Michkov was immediately on him trying to poke the puck away, and got it on a bounce that fell right back to his stick to try to generate a scoring chance in front.
The Flyers were checking and generating their looks, but the luck just wasn't there yet, nor the shot volume.
"There's opportunities, there's some plays to be made," Tortorella said. "We just didn't finish off plays."
Owen Tippett, after scoring the goal that sparked a late push against Colorado on Monday, tried to direct a pass from the far-side point in but had it fought away out wide, and the top line of Tippett, Sean Couturier, and Travis Konecny generated a strong possession with seconds left in the first, only broken up a trip from Jesperi Kotkaniemi on Couturier in front, which sent the Flyers into the next frame on the power play.
Fedotov, after surrendering the opening goal, also bounced back quickly to make some big saves – first on a 2-on-0 rush from an errant pass that slipped through Rasmus Ristolainen's feet and immediately went the other way:
Then on another rush after Travis Sanheim lost control of the puck up at the point, which Jaccob Slavin and Jordan Staal ran away with. Fedotov banked on a pass between the two and stayed with it to make the stop.
The Hurricanes generated another dangerous look in between, when Ristolainen got caught and pinned along the boards from holding the puck for too long. Three Carolina skaters quickly converged in and toward the net, but Travis Sanheim had shifted over already and swept his stick to take the space away.
Sanheim, who's been a tank on the Flyers' blue line from skating what feels like ever-climbing minutes, put in another solid showing on Wednesday night, playing through 8:54 in the first and 24:40 for the game while keeping Carolina as under control as he and the rest of the team could.
The defensive and goaltending heroics continued into the second. The Flyers finally got the equalizer from them too.
A couple of minutes in, after the carried-over power play had expired, Noah Cates caught up to Kotkaniemi along the neutral zone boards from behind and knocked the puck right to defenseman Nick Seeler skating back.
Seeler flipped the puck to Ryan Poehling in transition, and Poehling took it straight back through into the Carolina zone, then made a cut through three defenders and let the shot fly. It beat Kochetkov on his glove side to knot the score, 1-1.
He kept the puck clear though, and the Flyers in it.
But then the puck dropped in the third, and Fedotov couldn't hold on to a shot that Sebastian Aho dragged across his body after picking up a turnover along the boards and cutting inside. Tippett took the puck into the defensive corner then threw the puck back for Erik Johnson to clear out. Johnson got stuck and the puck found Aho instead.
"It puts EJ in a tough spot," Tortorella said of the sequence. "But we have people running away from the puck, too. We have no puck support."
That was a minute in, and it opened floodgates for Carolina.
Staal, on a deflection in front, and Jack Roslovic, on an Aho takeaway off of Poehling in the neutral zone, tagged the Flyers back-to-back a few minutes later, and for a team that has continued to flounder after consistent sources of offense, a 4-1 hole was a tough one to dig out of that deep into the game.
The Flyers were held to only six shots from the second period up until there was 12:22 left in the third – after they generated 11 in the first. Carolina had outshot them during that stretch, 20-6.
"I think we got away from our game," Seeler said from the Flyers' locker room afterward. "We stopped getting pucks in and going to work on their D, and, you know, we saw what happened in the third there."
The Flyers got overwhelmed.
"They got a lot of skill," Poehling said of Carolina. "So when you give them freebies like we did tonight – yeah, like that fourth goal – they're gonna make plays. They're good enough to do that, so it's tough to beat that team when you do that."
Fedotov stopped 33 of 37 shots in total.
The Flyers will get the next couple of days off, then look to bounce back Saturday at 1 p.m. against Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks right back here at home.
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