PHILADELPHIA \u2014 If the Flyers needed any more convincing that they have hit rock bottom, a 6-3 spanking by the last-place New York Rangers on home ice Saturday afternoon pretty much removed all doubt.<\/p>\n
The Flyers\u2019 fifth straight regulation loss, which extended their winless streak to six games (0-5-1), has momentarily pushed them out of the playoff picture. In the last six games, they have been outscored, 31-12.<\/p>\n
The Flyers surrendered one power-play goal, running that total to four in the past two games, after a 6-3 loss in Pittsburgh Thursday.<\/p>\n
Coach Rick Tocchet was not about to push the panic button. Teams go through dry spells, and he\u2019s seen enough of them to know how the recovery works.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not a team that can open it up,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a little bit tired, you lose a little bit of confidence, you have to stay with structure. It\u2019s on me to get these guys back on the rail.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Flyers showed a little life in the third period but by then it was too late.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to play a certain way to be able to compete,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cYou saw when we tried to open it up. . .there\u2019s a time and place to go but I think we\u2019re kind of caught in between. We\u2019ve got to get back to our identity and that\u2019s playing smart hockey, playing disciplined.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s attack was led by Mika Zibanejad\u2019s hat trick and Artemi Panarin\u2019s two-goal effort.<\/p>\n
The Flyers surrendered goals on each of New York\u2019s first three shots of the game in a span of a minute and 20 seconds, hushing the sellout crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting behind the eight-ball, we\u2019re losing two-, three-nothing before the game starts,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cYou can\u2019t chase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Travis Konecny opened the scoring with a shot from the right dot past Ranger Spencer Martin at 6:22. Martin was playing just his third game of the season, with starter Igor Shesterkin injured and backup Jonathan Quick ineffective.<\/p>\n
Then the roof caved in on Flyers starting goalie Aleksei Kolosov. Panarin was left open in the left circle and he scored at 7:05. Just 21 seconds later, Zibanejad took advantage of a New York faceoff win and sent a 40-footer beyond Kolosov\u2019s reach. Finally, the Rangers broke in three-on-one against Kolosov, who had no chance on Brennan Othmann\u2019s short-range shot at 8:25. It was the Ranger forward\u2019s first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously they (the players) are frustrated,\u201d said defenseman Cam York, who was on the ice for four New York goals after doing the same against Pittsburgh. \u201cWe\u2019ve kind of just been shooting ourselves in the foot, making silly mistakes. It\u2019s correctable stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question is: How soon?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that we haven\u2019t done it this year,\u201d York responded. \u201cBut we\u2019re going to continue to work at it. Clean it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think guys are probably overthinking right now. Myself included. Things we haven\u2019t done all year we\u2019ve been doing. It\u2019s been a frustrating go but we have to correct it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three-goal bushwhack was all for Kolosov, replaced by Sam Ersson in a reversal of Thursday. Zibanejad scored two more goals in the second period as the onslaught continued.<\/p>\n
Ersson began the litany of errors by firing a puck over the glass, leading to Zibanejad\u2019s second goal at 5:38 to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
Then, at 8:25, the Flyers experienced a complete breakdown to lead to Zibanejad\u2019s third. Many of the Ranger fans in the house started throwing hats on the ice.<\/p>\n
Panarin added his second goal at 14:31 to make it 6-1 before Travis Sanheim scored shorthanded off a rush with Konecny. A third-period goal by Trevor Zegras made the final score a bit more respectable.<\/p>\n
Sean Couturier\u2019s voice was subdued postgame. Losing games in this fashion does not sit well with the captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cDown 3-1 in the first 10 minutes or whatever, we\u2019ve got to be better,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to stick together. A lot of pressure, outside noise but it\u2019s on us to figure it out and we\u2019ll come out stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
NOTES >> Flyers center Rodrigo Abols was injured at the 6:10 mark of the first period. He collapsed in the offensive zone\u2019s right corner and had to be helped off the ice by two teammates. He did not return to the game. When asked about Abols\u2019 condition after the game, Tocchet responded: \u201cIt\u2019s not good.\u201d \u2026 Konecny continues to move up some significant Flyers statistical categories. Saturday was his 692nd game with the Flyers, moving past Simon Gagne for 13th place. His 303 assists are tied with Eric Desjardins for 15th place on the Flyers\u2019 allt-ime list. \u2026\u00a0The Flyers begin a three-game trip Monday in Vegas. The trip continues with games in Utah Wednesday and at Colorado Friday. \u2026 Sanheim\u2019s 60 career goals move him past Behn Wilson and into a tie with Shayne Gostisbehere for fifth among Flyers defenseman. Sanheim also has 54 even-strength goals, one behind Ivan Provorov for second.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 If the Flyers needed any more convincing that they have hit rock bottom, a 6-3 spanking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,3328,35,5190,5193,4,56,36,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-413823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkrangers","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","15":"tag-rangers","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115914422664111573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413823","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=413823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}