Flyers relinquish late lead, drop to ‘Canes in OT to wrap up solid October originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
John Tortorella warned that the Hurricanes would be an angry and dangerous team.
He was right. Carolina looked like it late.
The Flyers relinquished a one-goal lead with 2:05 minutes left in regulation and suffered a 4-3 overtime loss Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
Brent Burns won it for the Hurricanes on a filthy shot with under a minute left in the bonus session.
“I kind of slid over to their guy, on his one-timer side,” Carter Hart said. “Pushed back to the middle, pushed a little too aggressive I think. Burns can shoot the puck and made a pretty good shot.”
The Flyers’ fourth line led was very good in a comeback attempt, producing two of the team’s goals.
Nicolas Deslauriers (even strength), Owen Tippett (power play) and Wade Allison (even strength) found the back of the net.
Allison’s goal broke a 2-2 tie 6:09 minutes into the third period. Carolina’s Martin Necas forced overtime.
The Flyers are 5-2-1 heading into November.
The Hurricanes (5-2-1), one of the favorites in the Metropolitan Division, suffered a lopsided home loss the night prior to the Islanders.
They wanted this one badly.
• Five wins over eight games for the Flyers in October.
Not bad.
Hockey folks tend to evaluate in five- and 10-game chunks.
Tortorella’s sole concern Saturday was Carolina.
“Months run into one another. I don’t even know what day it is half the time,” the head coach said Saturday morning. “They just run into one another, days for me. I’m just worried about each game. And I mean it. I don’t know what day it is usually. It’s just getting ready for your next game.
“We’re going to have our hands full tonight. They get spanked in their building last night. … This team’s probably one of the top teams in the league, if not the best team in the league. It’s a good test for us. We need to be ready to go.”
Solid first month for the Flyers. Did anyone see them going 5-2-1 with wins over the Lightning and Panthers?
“We can play with anybody,” Hart said. “Tonight, they get one early, kind of a fluky bounce. Down two again in the first but we come back and we score three unanswered goals. That just shows how resilient we are and we’re never out of the fight.
“Obviously disappointing to be on the losing end in overtime, but I thought it was a good effort for us.”
It’s early and the Flyers have been outplayed at times, but they’re staying in games. Tortorella has noted they have a long way to go.
“I think it has to be an organizational philosophy, is that this is going to take time,” he said Saturday morning.
• Tortorella’s club rallied from two goals down again.
Last season, the Flyers were the only team in the NHL with zero comeback victories from two-goal deficits. They have two such wins already.
They failed to make it three Saturday night.
The fourth line of Deslauriers (one goal, one assist), Allison (one goal, one assist) and Lukas Sedlak (two assists) combined for six points.
“We need to get goals by committee, they helped us out,” Tortorella said. “That’s what sucks — we get two goals by the fourth line, a power play goal and we lose the game.”
Before delivering the go-ahead goal in the third, the fourth line had a strong shift during the middle frame to draw the Flyers within one. It finished with Deslauriers’ first goal as a Flyer.
Just over two minutes later, Tippett scored his first of the season to knot things up. Travis Konecny and Tony DeAngelo collected their fifth assist apiece on the game-tying goal.
“I thought we played two good periods — the second and third,” Tortorella said. “I thought it was the two best periods we’ve played in quite a while.”
DeAngelo saw the Hurricanes for the first time since they traded him to the Flyers on Day 2 of the July entry draft.
• The Flyers fell behind 2-0 for the fifth time through eight games.
Hart yielded a leaky goal 5:27 minutes into the game when Jordan Staal squeaked the puck between the netminder’s skate and the post.
About nine and a half minutes later, the Flyers lost a puck battle in the defensive zone and Carolina broke them down. Jordan Martinook finished the sequence for the Hurricanes, who put 14 shots on Hart during the first period.
The 24-year-old finished with 34 saves on 38 shots. The loss was his first of the year, dropping him to 5-0-1.
Hart faced 51 shots two nights ago and converted a career-high 48 saves to anchor the Flyers’ 4-3 win over the Panthers.
On Friday, Tortorella was asked if the amount of work Hart had to do in net concerned him.
“Yes,” he said. “The good news is I think a lot of it is kind of in our own control to correct. It’s positioning.”
That was a focus in film Friday. Not taking themselves out of position.
“That was today’s tape, was here we are, we’re in great position, but we get so anxious, we end up putting ourselves out of position,” Tortorella said. “So it can be corrected. No matter if they’re young players or not, it can be corrected, so that’s the good news.”
Carolina netminder Antti Raanta stopped 26 of the Flyers’ 29 shots.
• Kieffer Bellows made his Flyers debut on a line with Morgan Frost and Zack MacEwen.
The 24-year-old winger went scoreless in 11:50 minutes. He was claimed off of waivers Thursday.
“I think the big thing is I just want to be a power forward,” Bellows said Friday. “I think that’s kind of the role that I see myself as, a power forward that scores goals, has good offensive flair, but can be trusted defensively, as well.”
• Sean Couturier (back) and James van Riemsdyk (broken left index finger) underwent surgery this week. More on their statuses here.
• The Flyers are scheduled to practice Monday in Voorhees, New Jersey before leaving for a back-to-back set on the road. They visit the Rangers on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP) and Maple Leafs on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP+).
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