A season-high third straight regulation-time loss was bound to happen but the Flyers didn\u2019t expect it to take place in such a non-competitive way.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night in Buffalo, the Flyers fell behind 3-0 and never really challenged the Sabres in a 5-2 defeat at KeyBank Center.<\/p>\n
Adding injury to insult, Flyers starting goaltender Dan Vlader suffered what appeared to be a leg injury in the first period and left the game for good when the period ended. Sam Ersson was called into the game at the start of the second period.<\/p>\n
Owen Tippett and Trevor Zegras scored the only goals for the Flyers, who saw their winless streak (0-3-1) continue.<\/p>\n
Penalty killing has been one of the Flyers\u2019 strong points this season but Buffalo managed to score two of its goals with the man advantage.<\/p>\n
Buffalo defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, who entered the game with four goals on the season, scored twice in the winning effort.<\/p>\n
Down 3-0, Tippett scored off a power move at the top of the slot. His shot eluded goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen at 10:28 of the second period. However, a penalty to Travis Konecny helped put Buffalo back on top by three goals when Dahlin sent a short screen shot beyond Ersson\u2019s reach at 13:51.<\/p>\n
Zegras did score a power-play goal in the third period.<\/p>\n
The Flyers\u2019 15 comeback wins lead the NHL but a rally was not to be on this night.<\/p>\n
The Sabres jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first period. The first score came on a power-play goal at 9:30. With Cam York in the penalty box, Dahlin skated down the slot and beat Vladar.<\/p>\n
Buffalo struck again at 15:13. Zegras and Konecny were slow on the backcheck, setting up a two-on-one the other way. Mattias Samuelsson, son of former Flyer defenseman Kjell Samuelsson, finished off the play.<\/p>\n
The Flyers went into the game knowing they would be without the services of defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen (upper-body injury).<\/p>\n
Fortunately for the Flyers, defenseman Jamie Drysdale returned to the lineup after spending a week on injured reserve.<\/p>\n
Due to those developments, coach Rick Tocchet switched his defense pairs around. He moved York away from the usual tandem with Travis Sanheim and switched him to a pairing with Drysdale.<\/p>\n
York and Drysdale are friends going back to their junior hockey days.<\/p>\n
What was the strategy there?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think during the season things might get stale,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cBoth can move the puck, they\u2019re really good at wheeling pucks. Maybe they can supply some puck possession for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Flyers just got Ristolainen back about a month ago after he was out of action since last mid-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a big loss for us,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThank goodness it\u2019s only a couple games and he\u2019s back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the final minute, Buffalo scored an empty-net goal after the Flyers couldn\u2019t convert in a six-on-four situation.<\/p>\n
Cates\u2019 take on the slide<\/p>\n
Noah Cates said the Flyers were attempting to get some of their consistency back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consistency throughout the season has been good,\u201d he said. \u201cThat got away the last couple games. Just the little things, the little details \u2026 we\u2019ve just got to get back to those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Tocchet: \u201cYou can\u2019t get too high, too low, you just have to stick with it. We have to execute some plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabres formidable foe<\/p>\n
Buffalo got off to a bad start and was near the bottom of the Atlantic Division standings as recently as last month. Then the Sabres went on a 13-2 tear and are now back in contention in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got a good team,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cEven when we played them before, they went through some tough stretches but it was just a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cates agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe parity in this league is incredible,\u201d Cates said. \u201cEvery team is so good, so dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barkey scratched<\/p>\n
Rookie Denver Barkey has struggled a bit of late so Tocchet decided to scratch him against the Sabres.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in junior last year,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cSo I think it\u2019s important he gets a little bit of a break. I told him to watch the game up top. I think that\u2019s important for young guys to watch it. Slows the game from up top. It\u2019s almost like a homework assignment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Short shots<\/p>\n
The Flyers head to Pittsburgh for a Thursday night meeting with the Penguins. With Vladar injured, the Flyers might call up Aleksei Kolosov from Lehigh Valley. \u2026 Vladar made the 28th start of his season. He\u2019s approaching his career-high of 30. \u2026 The Flyers entered the game with 10 road wins since Nov. 1, tying them for fourth in the NHL over that span.<\/p>\n
Wayne Fish is a freelance writer. Follow his coverage at www.flyingfishhockey.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A season-high third straight regulation-time loss was bound to happen but the Flyers didn\u2019t expect it to take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-408632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115897939157318106","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}