
NEW YORK – All through the Flyers’ six-game point streak there seemed to be really cohesive play in all three zones for much of the action.
A great deal of that solid structure came apart in Thursday night’s game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers.
The Flyers were much too loose with the puck, forcing goaltender Samuel Ersson to face one difficult shot after another. A total of 37 shots allowed tied a season high.
When this game was over, with a 6-1 defeat, so was the Flyers’ 5-0-1 run with at least a point.
While the Flyers’ defense was coming apart, their offense was actually pretty good. But Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin was better, turning aside most of the Flyers’ good scoring chances and earning the game’s No. 1 star.
“One of the keys to the game was their goalie,” coach John Tortorella said. “I mean we end up with 24, 25 scoring chances and couldn’t solve him.
“On the other end of it, point shots, deflections, I don’t think we blocked enough shots (an official total of 16). A couple good tip-ins by them. Sometimes those are plays you don’t notice in a game if you don’t tip ‘em. They tipped them tonight, hurt us. But to look at the score, not a chance that’s the way the game was played.”
Ersson took on some of the blame himself. He couldn’t be faulted for several of the goals but he always expects more of himself.
“To lose a game like that, you have to find a way to come up with more key saves,” he said. “I don’t think we necessarily played a bad game. Igor obviously played very well. I think I’ve got to play a little bit better.”
At this juncture in the season, just one loss creates what seems to be an even more challenging task to remain in the playoff hunt.
Meanwhile, the Rangers – one of the teams just ahead of the Flyers – ran their point streak to 10 games (7-0-3).
It’s tough enough to win at MSG when a team is playing airtight hockey. The Flyers were doing far from that for much of this game.
“Just some breakdowns in our D-zone,” Travis Sanheim said. “Deflection goals. Picking up sticks, stuff like that, which we’ve been pretty good at over the last stretch.
“Obviously disappointed to give up that many. But at the same time, I thought we had our looks, too. Shesterkin was pretty good tonight.”
A goal by the Rangers’ K’Andre Miller at 4:44 of the second period put the Flyers in a 3-1 hole.
Miller, a defenseman, took advantage of an extra attacker in the offensive zone and got a puck past Ersson.
The Flyers are just 6-15-1 when trailing after two periods this season.
Although the Flyers scored first, they trailed by the first intermission.
Owen Tippett received credit for the initial goal, with Travis Konecny’s pass bouncing off the left wing’s right skate and past Igor Shesterkin at 1:25.
The goal was allowed to stand because Tippett did not use a kicking motion to guide the puck into the net.
The Rangers responded with a pair of goals just 1:24 apart.
Braden Schneider started the burst by breaking through and scoring at the nine-minute mark with a short advance past Ersson. Then Adam Edstrom sent a point shot through a maze of bodies into the net and just like that the Flyers were down, 2-1.
The Tippett goal got the Flyers off to a good start but they couldn’t maintain much offensive pressure after that.
In the third period, Filip Chytil’s tip-in goal at 5:15 put the game out of reach. New York added an empty-net goal with 3:07 to play.
Garnet Hathaway said the Flyers did a good job of limiting turnovers (on the scoresheet, the Flyers had only eight official turnovers).
“They (the Rangers) make a lot of great plays on the rush,” Hathaway said. “Created a lot of stuff. ‘Ers’ made some unbelievable saves. Could have been a lot worse a lot earlier. They get traffic in front of our net, chip some and that’s the difference.
“And then we’re chasin’. . .we were chasin’ early.”
>Short shots
Coming up it’s the tail end of back-to-back game action on Friday night with a match against the Islanders at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. The Flyers are 1-6-1 in the second half of back-to-backs. . .Just recalled Anthony Richard played on a line with another recent recall, Rodrigo Abols, along with Hathaway. Richard was injured late in the second period when he fell chasing Miller and caught the back end of Miller’s left skate in the middle of his face. But he returned to action for the third period. Tortorella gave the line high marks and praised Abols in particular.