NEWARK, N.J. – Having beaten the Devils twice in the past two weeks, the Flyers knew playing them again a third time so quickly was unlikely to be a charm.
And it wasn’t.
While the Flyers held their own in the first period of Wednesday night’s game at the Prudential Center, the middle frame was something you don’t save the video from.
The Devils scored four times, drove Flyers starting goaltender Samuel Ersson from the net and went to a 5-0 payback victory.
A hard hit on Flyers wing Owen Tippett by Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon in the first period might have gotten the Flyers off their game somewhat. No penalty was called on the play, which resulted in the Flyers trying to exact revenge throughout the first half of the game action.
Tippett went straight to the locker room and later it was announced he would not return to action.
After the hit, coach John Tortorella voiced his displeasure from the bench at the referees. But after the game, having watched videotape of the incident, the coach changed his tone, saying the puck arrived at about the same time as the Devil defenseman made his hit.
“I looked at it again, I just didn’t think the puck was there,” Tortorella said. “But the puck was there. I looked at it after the game and the puck is there.”
Several players had diverse opinions.
“I got to watch it just once on the bench,” Garnet Hathaway said. “I don’t think the refs looked it over. That was my impression at least. If you want me to dissect the play, I don’t think the puck was there yet. He was trying to make a hockey play I believe. I just think the puck wasn’t there.”
Right now the Flyers are a little sensitive to these kinds of hits. Back on Jan. 16, the Islanders’ Maxim Tsyplakov put a blindside hit on Flyers center Ryan Poehling. Poehling was placed on injured reserve and hasn’t played since.
It goes without saying it’s tough to regroup after watching a teammate receive such a violent hit.
“Unfortunately it happens more times than we hoped,” Hathaway said. “I would say it’s just part of the game. Controlling your emotions, trying to figure out your game.”
Travis Sanheim also suggested the Flyers needed to keep a tighter hold on their feelings.
“I thought our first period was pretty good, lost it in the second,” he said. “It didn’t look like he (Tippett) had the puck. An unfortunate pass by me. I see him in the middle, I don’t see the weak side ‘D’ coming across the middle. It (a penalty) probably should have been called. But by not calling it, you saw what happened.”
Ersson managed to keep the Devils at bay for 20 minutes but the Devils broke through with a power-play goal from Ondrej Palat just 54 seconds into the second period. Palat cashed in from a scramble out front.
The Flyers couldn’t get much pressure on New Jersey goaltender Jake Allen (starting goaltender Jacob Markstrom is injured). The Devils made it 2-0 on an unassisted Jack Hughes breakaway at 6:27.
Then the roof fell in. Nathan Bastian scored on another power play at 12:41 and Dawson Mercer completed the onslaught at 13:43.
Philadelphia needed to keep its discipline and it didn’t.
“The game kind of loosened up,” said Scott Laughton. “They got a couple on the power play. Yeah, we got beat tonight, fair and square. We loosened up a little after it started to get a little bit crazy out there. I thought we were cheating a little bit. Opened ourselves up and got into a track meet. Can’t do it against that team, they’re too good.”
That was all for Ersson, who was replaced by Ivan Fedotov.
Hughes scored again at 1:58 of the third to build the lead to five.
Tortorella said the Flyers’ penalty kill let them down a bit. The Devils got those two goals and it could have been a lot worse.
“A couple crazy power-play goals, deflecting off shin pads,” he said. “I thought we played a really good first period. We were fine. It got away from us when we couldn’t kill a penalty.”
The Devils were two for three with the man advantage.
>Short shots
The Flyers will try to end a season-long slump in the second half of back-to-backs when they take on the New York Islanders at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night. The Flyers are 1-7-1 in the tail end of these situations. . .Defenseman Egor Zamula sat out his third straight game with an upper-body injury and was replaced once again by Erik Johnson. Also, Sean Couturier (illness) returned to action and Rodrigo Abols was scratched. . .The Flyers were shut out for the third time this season and first time on the road. . . .Tortorella coached in his 1,599th NHL game, moving past Ken Hitchcock into seventh place on the all-time list. He will coach in game No. 1,600 when the Islanders visit on Thursday.
