PHILADELPHIA – If not for a brief lapse in the first period of Tuesday night’s game against Minnesota, the Flyers might have had a chance in this one.
But as they say, a game lasts 60 minutes and the Flyers let this one get away early, eventually falling by a 4-2 score at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
The Flyers were hoping to build something off of Sunday afternoon’s 6-3 win over Utah. However, the Wild, who lead the competitive Central Division, scored the first two goals of the game and it was all uphill after that for the Flyers.
With the win, Minnesota ended a four-game (0-4-0) losing streak in Philadelphia.
After the Wild took an early 2-0 lead (which eventually became 3-0), the Flyers started to rally, just as they did against Columbus a week ago (a 4-3 OT loss). But after getting to within 3-2, the Flyers couldn’t get a tying goal.
“I thought we played a pretty good game,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “Obviously you can’t stake a team like that, three-nothing. For me, it’s missed chances. We had 23 missed opportunities, nine or 10 scoring chances where we missed the net.
“This is where we can learn from (the Wild’s Matt) Boldy. He shoots for a rebound. He doesn’t try to score. We try to score from those places, we shoot wide. We need to make the goalie handle it. We have to get better at that. Twenty-three missed shots. We have to hit the net. Those are the difference-makers.”
It didn’t talk long for the Wild to show why they are one of the NHL’s most successful teams in the early going.
Minnesota jumped to a 2-0 lead before the game was six minutes old.
Boldy, part of the Wild’s powerhouse top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek, struck first at 4:06.
Then, just 31 seconds later, Michael McCarron was left all alone in front and goalie Dan Vladar had no chance on a short shot.
The period ended with Minnesota holding just an 8-7 edge in shots
but the Wild clearly had the better of the play.
Philadelphia kept competing but it wasn’t enough.
“It’s never fun giving up two goals that early, back-to-back,” said Jamie Drysdale. “I thought we actually played a decent game. I thought we had a chance there (in the third period).”
In the second period, the Wild got off to a quick start and made it 3-0 on a goal by Eriksson Ek just 42 seconds after the opening faceoff.
The Flyers got one back when Tyson Foerster managed to tip Jamie Drysdale’s shot past Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt at 14:27. Then Philadelphia closed it to a one-goal deficit when Denver Barkey got his first of the season on a power play at 1:48 of the third.
The power play, a weakness for years and off to a slow start this season, has been coming around lately.
“We’re figuring it out,” Drysdale said. “I think we’re moving it well. Even when we don’t score, I think we got looks. We have to keep going because I think we have an opportunity to impact the game down even more.”
Foerster said the rally might bode well for his team.
“We had a couple good looks to tie it there late,” he said. “Ultimately we couldn’t do it but it was a good start in the right direction.”
Travis Konecny said that never-say-attitude brought back some memories.
“It reminded me of last year,” he said. “As long as we stuck to our plan, we knew we were going to give ourselves a chance. Just limiting those mistakes (only five of the Flyers’ 18 position players didn’t have a giveaway against the Wild) and we’re right in the game.”
The Flyers have had a number of slow starts (they’re 1-7-3 when an opponent scores first) and that’s something that needs to be corrected.
“It’s frustrating,” said Konecny, “but everybody is really positive. Once we started playing, you could just see we weren’t giving up much. We were coming.”
>Nice tribute for Brink
The Flyers played a video tribute for former Philly player Bobby Brink, now a mainstay with the Wild. Brink had a couple good seasons in Philly. When the video ended, Brink stood up on the Minnesota bench, smiled and waved to the crowd, which responded with a loud cheer.
>Short shots
Next stop for the Flyers is Madison Square Garden on Thursday night to play the New York Rangers. It’s the start of a five-game road trip which will take them out west for three games before finishing in Columbus. . .Konecny’s multi-point game against Utah was the 128th of his career, moving him past Rick Tocchet into 14th place on the Flyers’ all-time list.
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