Ersson yanked, Tortorella tossed and Flyers get rolled by Lightning originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Samuel Ersson and John Tortorella didn’t last long Saturday night as the Flyers suffered their worst loss of the season, 7-0, to the Lightning at Amalie Arena.
The rookie goalie was pulled after Tampa Bay’s fourth goal and the head coach was ejected.
It all happened only 10:49 minutes into the action.
The Flyers (33-24-8) were also down to five defensemen as Egor Zamula missed the game because of an illness.
Forty-three penalty minutes were racked up against the Flyers. Garnet Hathaway had 20 of them, while Nicolas Deslauriers, Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson dropped the gloves.
The Flyers went 1-2-0 against the Lightning (34-25-6) in their three-game regular-season series.
• This is definitely some adversity for the Flyers.
They were missing four defensemen Saturday night, with Zamula sick and Nick Seeler, Jamie Drysdale and Rasmus Ristolainen on injured reserve.
Their 24-year-old goalie had the shortest outing of his NHL career.
Their head coach wasn’t allowed to coach. He was livid with the officials after being tossed from the bench.
And, as they try to fend off teams in the playoff race, they suffered their most lopsided defeat of the season.
After they play the 16-40-7 Sharks, the Flyers have seven straight games against teams in playoff position.
Two vs. BOS
Two vs. TOR
One vs. FLA
One vs. NYR
One vs. CAR
The Flyers have handled adversity pretty well this season. They’ll have to answer it again here.
• Ersson wasn’t sharp, giving up four goals on 15 shots.
Victor Hedman got him 1:49 minutes into the game. Nicholas Paul cushioned Tampa Bay’s lead a little over four minutes later on the power play.
Conor Sheary and Brayden Point doubled the lead with goals in the span of 1:39 minutes. Point’s marker came on the power play and Tortorella clearly didn’t agree with some of the penalties called against the Flyers.
In relief, Felix Sandstrom stopped eight of 11 shots.
The Lightning scored one in the second period and two more in the final stanza.
Tampa Bay netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves for the shutout. He made up for his off night 11 days ago in Philadelphia.
• Erik Johnson and Denis Gurianov made their Flyers debuts after being acquired Friday at the trade deadline.
Johnson, an accomplished defenseman, was a minus-1 with six hits and two blocked shots in 19:57 minutes.
Gurianov, a 26-year-old forward, played 11:57 minutes. He came into the lineup for Zamula. Adam Ginning was sent back to AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley on Friday, so the Flyers had to play an extra forward.
• If there was a silver lining for the Flyers, it was that Travis Sanheim and Owen Tippett appeared to survive injury scares.
During the second period, Luke Glendening fell into Sanheim’s left leg, causing it to bend awkwardly. But the 27-year-old defenseman was OK and finished with 28:49 minutes.
Tippett took a heavy shot to his left foot in the third period and stayed down in pain. He exited the game briefly but was able to return.
• The Flyers host San Jose on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).
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