Flyers lose 3rd straight, fall to 2-5-1 in December

Flyers lose 3rd straight, fall to 2-5-1 in December originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

A trip home couldn’t stop the bleeding for the Flyers.

They fell to the Kings, 7-3, Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center.

Tyson Foerster had the second three-point game of his career (two goals, one assist). His second marker gave the Flyers their first lead at 3-2 in the second period. It came off a nice feed from Morgan Frost seven seconds after a power play expired.

But Anze Kopitar got it back for Los Angeles, tying the game with 44 seconds left in the second period.

Warren Foegele gave the Kings their lead back in the opening two minutes of the third period and Kopitar tacked on with his second. Los Angeles added an empty-netter and a seventh goal for good measure.

“It just sucks, you’re tied going into the third period at home, it’s where you want to be,” Frost said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to close it out.”

The Flyers (14-15-4) have lost three straight by a combined score of 17-8. They’re also 2-5-1 in December. They were coming off a poor performance in Detroit, a 6-4 loss Wednesday night to the Red Wings.

“I don’t think we played well last night,” Tortorella said pregame. “I just want us to rebound the right way against a stingy team, a big team, a team waiting for us here. I want to see how we react. It’s still an early time of the year, but I don’t want to play two bad games in a row. And we usually don’t. I think we’ve played some good hockey, but last night, we just weren’t there.”

Tortorella’s club is 1-5-0 in the second game of back-to-back sets and has been outscored 29-17.

The Flyers have two more games before the NHL-mandated holiday break.

“Everyone says after the break it gets harder,” Foerster said. “So these games are big.”

The Kings (19-9-4), who were playing the fifth game of a seven-game road trip, took it to the Flyers in the third period. The Flyers see Los Angeles again in 10 days when they visit Crypto.com Arena.

“It’s a good hockey club, it’s a team that checks very well,” Tortorella said. “A good challenge for us here. I thought we handled ourselves well for 40 minutes, but we couldn’t find our way through 60.”

• Aleksei Kolosov had 20 saves on 26 shots.

The Kings’ go-ahead 4-3 goal early in the third period took a bad bounce off of Ryan Poehling’s stick.

Kolosov couldn’t cover the puck on Los Angeles’ second and third goals.

The 22-year-old rookie entered 4-0-1 over his previous five starts.

Kings netminder Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 of the Flyers’ 26 shots.

“I think we had a great second there and in the third they just capitalized on a bunch of their chances,” Foerster said. “We were trying to push and we got caught a couple of times.”

• With Cam York benched, the Flyers had three new defensive pairs. None of them finished with a positive plus-minus.

“There were some struggles there,” Tortorella said.

Emil Andrae drew into the lineup and played alongside Egor Zamula.

Travis Sanheim and Jamie Drysdale had a tough night together. They were on the ice for five of Los Angeles’ goals.

In the first period, Kevin Fiala took the top off the Flyers’ defense by splitting the pair and finishing a breakaway.

Noah Cates erased the Flyers’ 1-0 deficit 3:18 minutes later with his third goal in the last five games.

But 1:31 minutes into the second period, Tanner Jeannot buried a loose puck in front to put the Flyers back down one. Sanheim, Drysdale and Frost were all in the vicinity of the puck. Kolosov also failed to glove it in the crease.

The Flyers tied it back up about 10 minutes later on Foerster’s first of the night. Scott Laughton made a good play just after the Flyers killed off Foerster’s high-sticking penalty.

“I think the biggest thing is one breakdown can’t lead to two,” Cates said. “I think right now, you’re kind of seeing us compound mistakes.”

• Travis Konecny and Matvei Michkov went scoreless. For Michkov, it was his fourth straight game without a point. The 20-year-old rookie was a minus-4 and played 12:19 minutes.

• The Flyers are back in action Saturday when they host the Blue Jackets (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).

Subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts:
Apple Podcasts | Youtube Music | Spotify | Stitcher | Simplecast | RSS | Watch on YouTube