PHILADELPHIA – There are a number of reasons for why the Flyers have lost five straight games, all the defeats coming on home ice, but the No. 1 cause might have been singled out by coach John Tortorella after Thursday night’s 5-2 loss to Ottawa.
“Our roster has changed (five players gone via trade),” Tortorella said in his postgame session at the Wells Fargo Center. “But we have some guys who can score some goals. Those are the ones who are going to have to step up.
“We have to get ‘Tipp’ (Owen Tippett) going. Tyson (Foerster) has a chance (vs. the Senators) and doesn’t score. We have to get
‘TK’ going. He’s in knots as far as his game is concerned. ‘Mich’ (Matvei Michkov) made some great plays, we need him to score a goal. ‘Coots’ (Sean Couturier) had a chance.”
Konecny, the team’s leading goal-scorer, has turned on only one red light since mid-January. Clearly he’s pressing. Tortorella currently has Konecny on a third line with Ryan Poehling and Olle Lycksell, who aren’t exactly Bob Clarke and Bill Barber, so Konecny is going to have to dig out of this pretty much on his own.
“He (Konecny) does a lot of the work as far as carrying us when we’re struggling to score goals,” Tortorella said. “First half of the year he was a big part of that. We have to get him on track. We still have some guys who can score some goals. The last couple games we’ve turned it into a low-event game and we have to play that way right now and hopefully have some guys bang in a couple goals.”
Tuesday night’s game was another one of those “we were better, but. . .” affairs. The Flyers played tighter defense against the Senators but it wasn’t quite enough.
The Senators appear to be headed for the playoffs and showed why by responding quickly both times the Flyers managed to tie the score twice at 1-1 and 2-2 in the second period.
Defenseman Jamie Drysdale pulled the Flyers even the first time by getting behind the Ottawa defense and beating goaltender Anton Forsberg off the rush at 3:05.
Just a minute and nine seconds later, Ottawa defenseman Tyler Kleven sent a point shot through a cluster of bodies and past netminder Ivan Fedotov.
The Flyers responded with a goal from Rodrigo Abols, courtesy of a Cam York feed, at 8:45. York set up the play with a nifty rush down the left side.
Ottawa once again came back to go ahead at 15:01. Michael Amadio hurried down the right side, unloaded from below the dot and delivered a shot through Fedotov’s pads. That turned out to be the deciding goal.
Former Flyer great Claude Giroux helped his new team get ahead of his old team just 24 seconds into the game.
Giroux, registering the 1,107th point of his illustrious career, set up Brady Tkachuk at the right post for a short shot past Fedotov to kick off the scoring.
That set the tone for the night.
The Flyers did bounce back but never could get ahead.
“I felt like we had a chance to win tonight,” Drysdale said. “Didn’t get the job done. It’s no fun but it feels like it’s trending in the right direction.
“I’m feeling pretty confident in my game. But as a team we could be a lot better. Too much mistakes defensively. Caused a couple chances against. We all know what we can do better. We need to apply it and stick together here.”
In the third period, Ottawa’s Dylan Cozens scored off a turnover at 10:59 for a 4-2 lead. Shane Pinto later added an empty-net goal.
One Flyer who appears to be on the upswing again is York, who has played better since he was benched against Seattle on Saturday.
“I feel like there’s been some plays for me, they just haven’t been going in the net,” he said. “Just going to chip away at it. Hopefully see some more fall.”
>Poehling encouraged
At Tuesday morning’s skate at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees, N.J., center Ryan Poehling discussed what the Flyers were trying to do to change their recent fortunes.
“More of the same, keep it simple,” he said. “We need to play with consistency, we’re very detailed in how we approach a game. That’s what we kind of need to do to get out of this stretch we’re in.
“It’s a long season. You have to realize there are going to be some ups and downs. I think it’s about playing with confidence, playing with one another.”
>Short shots
Defenseman Egor Zamula was a healthy scratch and replaced by Emil Andrae. . .In upcoming Thursday action, the Flyers will take on the Tampa Bay Lightning in the sixth game of this seven-game homestand. . .Garnet Hathaway remains sidelined with an upper-body injury suffered in a game at Pittsburgh last month. . .Fedotov’s record fell to 5-11-3. . .Ottawa is 24-1-1 when leading after two periods.
