The Philadelphia Flyers saw their five-game point streak come to an end in a wacky 7-5 loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday.
Originally down 3-0, the Flyers stormed back and made it a game, even taking a 5-4 lead in the third period before succumbing to the Panthers’ high-octane offense.
“I loved our ability to stay with it and find a way,” said assistant coach Brad Shaw postgame. “You take that game and get it to 5-4, that’s a great sign. The fact we don’t finish it off, that’s something we have to work on and that’s part of being a team that’s not quite down the path as far as we’d like to be as a group.”
The Flyers fall to 12-11-3 overall and 6-7-1 at home in the process of seeing their three-game winning streak and five-game point streak both snapped by the defending Stanley Cup champions.
FIRST PERIOD
Evan Rodrigues muscled his way to the first goal of the game early on. Tyson Foerster tried his best to recover the puck but lost his footing and Rodrigues skated in and beat Ivan Fedotov just 2:36 into the contest.
The Panthers’ forecheck kept things going, and later on Matthew Tkachuk set up Niko Mikkola for a seeing-eye shot that beat Fedotov high blocker-side through traffic for a 2-0 lead not even seven minutes in.
Florida’s aggression in the offensive zone gave the Flyers problems all period long.
As we approached the halfway mark of the opening frame, Owen Tippett was tripped up by Aaron Ekblad on a 2-on-1 to send the Flyers to their first power play. The Flyers moved the puck well but only had one shot on goal courtesy of Travis Konecny.
After a final charge from the Panthers that saw Ryan Poehling painfully block a shot, Philadelphia would leave the ice down 2-0 on the scoreboard despite being up 10-7 in shots.
SECOND PERIOD
Aleksei Kolosov surprisingly replaced Fedotov to begin the second period. John Tortorella seemingly wasn’t pleased with Fedotov’s first period play, resulting in the change.
When asked about the reason for the goalie switch, Shaw said it was “a combo” of Fedotov’s play and wanting to ignite the team. “For both reasons it was done. It didn’t immediately help us, but it ended up being something that got us back in the game.”
Florida almost immediately earned a power play after Joel Farabee tripped Carter Verhaeghe just 92 seconds in. The Panthers got set up quickly and seemingly scored after a shot rang iron and sat next to the crease while Kolosov could not track it. However, Tortorella called a timeout and spent his 30 seconds wisely checking for goalie interference and then challenged the play. The replay showed that Tkachuk skated through the back of the crease and made contact with Kolosov’s glove hand, and Tortorella’s challenge proved successful.
However, the Panthers went right back to work on the restored power play and did make it 3-0 anyway after a pretty passing play between Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, and Aleksander Barkov, the latter of whom roofed a nifty backhand by Kolosov.
The Flyers woke up right after though, and on their second power play of the night it was Foerster who jammed home the first goal to try and get the comeback started.
Just 2:18 later, the Flyers forced a turnover in the Panthers’ zone and Nick Seeler capitalized with a bullet that beat Spencer Knight to make it a 3-2 game.
With 7:13 remaining in the period, Scott Laughton was wrongly called for interference against Tkachuk while in possession of the puck. Laughton and Tkachuk were skating in the same area of the ice and Tkachuk tripped himself over Laughton’s skate, resulting in the call.
Florida responded by restoring their two-goal advantage thanks to Verhaeghe cleaning up a rebound high past Kolosov.
After a small lull, the Flyers pulled back within one thanks to an Owen Tippett one-time rocket after a spectacular setup from Matvei Michkov. Just 23 seconds later, Michkov entered the zone and gave the puck to Tippett again, who followed up his first shot and stuffed home the rebound to tie the game up against his former team.
A four-goal second period propelled the Flyers into a tie game after trailing 3-0. It was definitely one of the most spirited periods Philadelphia has played all season so far.
THIRD PERIOD
The Flyers earned themselves an early power play after Ekblad tripped Garnet Hathaway just 72 seconds into the final frame, but could not do much with it as the Panthers’ penalty killers didn’t allow any great chances.
Philadelphia would not relent however, as the Flyers sent a flurry of bodies to the net and Hathaway rammed home the loose puck to give the home team their first lead of the game.
The Flyers continued to control the majority of play throughout the period, and they earned another power play at the 13:37 mark of the period thanks to Farabee’s stick being held by Adam Boqvist. It was abbreviated however as Bobby Brink interfered with Eetu Luostarinen on a zone entry, and then Konecny and Dmitry Kulikov received matching roughing minors after the whistle just 50 seconds later.
Just 16 seconds after all of that, Gustav Forsling wired a shot from distance that eluded Kolosov, who may have been screened by Travis Sanheim as the puck found its way in for a 5-5 tie with 5:17 to play.
Things continued to spiral as the Panthers went back to the power play and Reinhart had a yawning cage to shoot at on the play as the puck bounced to him. 6-5 Florida.
After Emil Andrae blew a tire skating with the puck with the net empty and tripped Tkachuk, the Panthers forward would seal the deal with an empty-netter to give Florida a wild 7-5 victory on Broad Street.
3 STARS OF THE GAME: 1) Matthew Tkachuk – FLA, 2) Aleksander Barkov – FLA, 3) Owen Tippett – PHI
OBSERVATIONS
– I’m not sure how much I agree with Ivan Fedotov being pulled after the first period. The first goal was a tad weak, and ideally Fedotov is a little more aggressive and holds his ground better on that play. The second goal I can’t really fault him for, however. The Panthers jumped on the puck with the Flyers in disarray, set up a good play and Mikkola fired a shot with traffic that clearly obscured Fedotov’s vision.
– Special teams were not kind to the Flyers tonight. Outside of the one power play goal, their other opportunities with the man advantage looked lackluster with very few high-quality scoring chances and they couldn’t find many ways to elude the Panthers’ defenders while moving the puck. On the penalty kill, the Flyers got beaten 4 out of 5 attempts against the always-dangerous Florida power play. You’re not going to win much that way.
– A game like tonight is just what Owen Tippett needed and hopefully he can continue to build his game up from here. He now has goals in back-to-back games and racked up his first multi-goal contest of the season.
UP NEXT
The Flyers head to Boston for a Saturday afternoon matchup against the Bruins at TD Garden (1:00pm; NHL Network).
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