Power (play) outage hurting Flyers’ offense

BOSTON — Firing blanks on the power play isn’t going to get it done against powerhouse teams like Boston and Colorado.

The Flyers are just one for their last 17 with the man advantage and the weakness in this area at times is glaring.

In Thursday night’s 3-0 loss at TD Garden, the Flyers (0 for 3 on the power play) simply couldn’t generate enough against the Bruins, giving backup goalie Jaroslav Halak the opportunity to pitch a shutout.

The other day, Wayne Simmonds (who is second to Alexander Ovechkin in power-play goals over the past few seasons) said the Flyers need to get more pucks to the net and create more traffic around the goaltender.

That’s certainly not a news bulletin but something the Flyers appear to have forgotten.

“You just have to stick with it,” Shayne Gostisbehere said. “Sometimes you have lapses like this. For us right now, it’s sticking with it and just staying positive.

“If you get pucks to the net, normally you get a two on one in front of the net. It’s up to us to get hungry, get those pucks. It’s up to the three of us (Gostisbehere, Jake Voracek, Claude Giroux) up top to get those pucks and give those guys (Simmonds, Sean Couturier) a chance to put them home.”

Couturier has yet to register an assist this season, both at even strength and on the power play. That’s rather shocking after 10 games.

“We’re not scoring,” he said. “We’re not satisfied. We’re just not jumping on loose pucks and capitalizing on our chances. Tonight we hit a crossbar. It’s not like we’re not trying to score here.”

The Flyers had four minutes of power-play time midway through the third period. What could the Flyers have done differently to get back in the game?

“Guys were trying,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “We didn’t execute well enough to get one. That was a real opportunity at that point in the game to put ourselves right back into position in a road game to be within one goal and give ourselves an opportunity to tie the game and we didn’t do that.”

The Flyers opened the night ranked 20th in the NHL at 17.6 percent. Philadelphia has only six goals in 37 chances.

Overall, the Flyers just have to push a little harder in all situations, including even strength.

“That takes mental toughness right now,” Hakstol said. “We’re going through a tough stretch here. This is a tough loss tonight. When you do take what we’re doing defensively, we have to add more now. Find away to break through and give ourselves an opportunity to breathe.”