It took the Flyers exactly 12 seconds on Saturday night to be reminded it’s not a good idea to fall behind early in a road game.
Predictably, once the Los Angeles Kings had the lead they never fell behind, resulting in a 6-3 loss for Philadelphia and the end of a seven-game (5-0-2) point streak.
The setback at Crypto.com Arena leveled the Flyers’ record at 1-1-1 on this West Coast road trip with the final game coming up Tuesday at Anaheim.
Viktor Arvidsson scored the first of two goals right out of the gate with a rush against Flyers goaltender Martin Jones and later the Kings amassed leads of 4-1 and 5-2. Each time the Flyers cut into that edge but with this being the third game in four nights, there just wasn’t enough energy to complete the comeback.
The Flyers picked up goals from Joel Farabee, Kevin Hayes and Ivan Provorov.
The Hayes goal came in a rather unique situation in the opening minutes of the third period. With the Flyers down by that 4-1 margin, the Kings took a pair of penalties, giving the Flyers a half-minute of five-on-three power play.
Interim head coach Mike Yeo called timeout, pulled Jones and was rewarded for the bold move when Hayes scored past Kings goalie Jonathan Quick at 2:42.
Yeo was hoping for a better overall defensive effort.
Farabee said his team needed to come out of the gate with a little more spark.
“Obviously we wanted to come out with a little bit better start,’’ he said during a media Zoom call. “Getting score on in the first shift is always tough. You’re behind the 8-ball right away. I thought we were skating hard, doing the right things. But there are definitely some areas we want to clean up.’’
Yeo can’t be too unhappy with the way his team has played over the past couple weeks.
“We generated some opportunities but I felt we gave them way too much tonight,’’ he said. “Playing on the road, you can’t be trying to score six goals to win a hockey game. Did I see a little bit of fatigue at times? Yes, but we’re not going to make excuses. It was more about making decisions and making things difficult on ourselves.’’
Farabee scored at the 13-minute mark of the first to tie the score but the Kings went back ahead at a Travor Moore goal just 1:47 later.
In the second period, Adrian Kempe made it 3-1 at the 46-second mark and Brendan Lemieux conntected at 13:27.
>Hart, Laughton clear COVID protocol
There was one bit of good news on Saturday night. Both goaltender Carter Hart and center Scott Laughton have cleared COVID protocol and are expected to rejoin the team shortly.
Both should be available for the Anaheim game. Center Derick Brassard also cleared the COVID list but is still injured and not expected to play against the Ducks.
>Short shots
Travis Konecny, whose goal drought reached 17 games, mouthed off to a ref and received a 10-minute misconduct penalty for his actions. . .Cam Atkinson picked up career assist number 200 on the Farabee goal.
