When a team gives up seven goals in a loss, that one gets filed away under “wait until the rematch.”
Such was the case on Saturday afternoon in St. Paul, Minnesota when the Flyers visited the Wild.
Back on Oct. 26, the Flyers skated to a 7-5 win over the Minnesota crew at the Wells Fargo Center. Sean Couturier led the charge with a hat trick/five-point game.
The Wild wanted revenge and got it with a 4-1 victory at Xcel Energy Center. Minnesota goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, a longtime Flyer nemesis, improved his career mark vs. Philadelphia to 33 wins against just 19 losses.
The defeat ended the Flyers’ seven-game (5-0-2) road point streak.
“I liked our game, we had chances,” Travis Sanheim said in a televised postgame interview. “We didn’t capitalize. They did on theirs. They’re a tough team to play against, play a hard style. It would have been nice to capitalize a little bit more. We were deserving of a better outcome.”
Generally, whatever offense the Flyers did generate, Fleury turned aside.
Minnesota scored in each period.
Matt Boldy’s breakaway goal at 15:21 of the second period gave the Wild a 2-0 lead. Boldy took a pass from Brock Faber, dangled the puck in front of goaltender Samuel Ersson and then put it away.
Kirill Kaprizov, who scored twice in this game, posted the only goal of the first period. The Minnesota scoring leader took the carom of a shot off the end board and squeezed a wide-angle shot off Ersson’s mask and just inside the right post.
In the third, the Wild launched an odd-man rush, with Marco Rossi finishing off a past from Mats Zuccarello at 9:34.
Sanheim’s goal with 5:42 to play spoiled Fleury’s shutout bid. Kaprizov connected for his second goal in the closing minutes after the Flyers pulled Ersson from the net.
Ersson had nothing but praise for the 40-year-old Fleury, a sure-shot Hall of Famer who started playing in the NHL way back in 2003. Fleury made some acrobatic saves but Ersson said those just weren’t by chance.
“He’s a skilled player, I don’t think it’s luck for him,” Fleury said. “For me, maybe it’s just finding a way to come up with a couple of extra saves – keep the team in it for a little bit longer, I think.”
Coach John Tortorella kept his comments short.
“We didn’t finish,” he said. “They finished on their chances. We had some high-quality chances, probably more than them. We didn’t finish. I thought we put in some really good minutes against a really good team. We just don’t score the goals, they do.”
>Flyer trio named to Canada’s WJC team
Canada announced its roster for the upcoming World Junior Championships and three Flyers will be on it.
Jett Luchanko, Philadelphia’s first-round pick in this past summer’s draft, was named to a forward spot. Defenseman Oliver Bonk and goaltender Carson Bjarnason also will play for Canada.
>Short shots
The Flyers get a handy break in their schedule as they are off until Wednesday when they face the Red Wings in a rematch game at Detroit. The Flyers beat Detroit by a 5-3 score this past Thursday. . .Garnet Hathaway dropped the gloves in a very short first-period fight with Minnesota’s Marcus Foligno. The Wild forward threw just one punch and that caused Hathaway to lose his balance and fall to the ice. . .Fleury made a spectacular save on Travis Konecny in the first period, lunging across the crease to stop the Flyer forward’s wide-open shot. Then, in the second period, Fleury got some unexpected help: Konecny had a wide-open net during a power play but his shot hit off Matvei Michkov’s stick and bounced harmlessly away. . .Minnesota is now 14-0-0 when leading after two periods. . .Kaprizov took over the NHL lead in points (36) recorded during even-strength play.
