PHILADELPHIA – It was no secret the Flyers wanted to finish the first half of their season with at least a .500 record.
To do that, they would need to defeat the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs, a team which had defeated them on Sunday night in Canada, 3-2, in overtime.
But the Flyers didn’t get revenge on Tuesday night and couldn’t level their season mark.
At 13:21 of the third period, Toronto’s Matthew Knies tipped in a shot by Morgan Reilly right after the Flyers lost a faceoff to break a 2-2 tie and sent the Leafs to a 3-2 victory at the Wells Fargo Center.
It was the Flyers’ 41st game and their record now stands at 17-19-5.
Flyers goaltender Ivan Fedotov, who played so well in Sunday night’s game, was almost as superb in this one. He didn’t have a whole lot of work early but was up to the task when called upon. Ultimately, he lost a duel with Toronto’s young netminder, Joseph Woll.
Travis Konecny led the Flyers’ attack with a pair of goals.
There wasn’t much room for second-guessing with these last two games. The Flyers played just well enough to lose both.
They did hold the Leafs to season-tying low of 17 shots.
Disappointing outcome?
“Yeah, I think we were playing the right way,” Noah Cates said after the game. “Really aggressive on them in the neutral zone against their top players. I think we take some confidence. It just really hurts not getting a point tonight.
“If we play against a lot of these teams that way, we’ll get points. And start to get on a roll here.”
According to coach John Tortorella, the Flyers were short a man too often. Besides wearing his team down, they also gave the Leafs a power-play goal by John Tavares.
Tavares opened the second period scoring with a goal at 1:19 to tie the score at 1-1 as Cam York sat in the penalty box. Tavares finished off a pass from Auston Matthews.
“Too many penalties,” Tortorella said. “But we played a good game.”
As for Fedotov, the signs are once again encouraging. Two straight games of efficient work. While the injured Samuel Ersson did skate on Tuesday morning, there’s no telling when he will be back.
Fedotov said two straight games (after missing a month) was a good thing.
“I feel better game by game,” he said.
He faced only two shots in the first period, so keeping focused was one of his biggest challenges.
“It’s one of the hardest parts of the game,” he said. “You have to keep your mind strong, keep focused, concentrate. Just be ready for their (top) players who shoot the puck a hundred percent. It’s part of my job.”
Konecny scored his 20th goal of the season at 7:14 to give the Flyers a 2-1 lead.
Cates created the play by stealing a puck from Toronto defenseman Conor Timmins at the bottom of the right circle. Cates fed Konecny who slid a shot past Woll. It’s the sixth 20-goal season of Konecny’s career.
But the Leafs bounced back on a goal from Matthews, who took advantage of an assist from Mitch Marner at 7:55 with a slot shot past Fedotov.
The Flyers played tight defense in the first period, limiting the Maple Leafs to just one shot until the final seconds when a generous scorekeeper gave the visitors credit for a shot on a long dump-in.
Konecny scored the only goal of the period when he finished off a feed from Sean Couturier, beating Woll from the right circle at 8:19.
>Short shots
The Flyers return to action on Thursday when they play the second game of their four-game homestand with a match against the Dallas Stars. . .With Ersson still sidelined by injury, Aleksei Kolosov served as backup to Fedotov. . .On the Flyers’ pre-game lineup sheet, the line of Cates-Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink was listed first. . .
Scott Laughton had to leave the ice 15 seconds into the third period after a hard-to-look-at collision with teammate Matvei Michkov. Laughton was helped off the ice and went straight to the locker room. But fortunately he was able to play again after missing a shift or two. . .”Nobody wants to see that,” Konecny said. “It looked pretty bad. So it’s good they both came back.”
Michkov has fallen to No. 2 in NHL rookie scoring stats. He has 29 points, Montreal’s Lane Hutson has 30.
