Flyers continue in wrong direction, fall to 0-4-0 on homestand originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Flyers’ woes at home continued with a 3-1 loss Sunday afternoon to the Devils at the Wells Fargo Center.
Jamie Drysdale scored the Flyers’ only goal with 4:47 minutes left in the game. It was assisted by Travis Konecny and Tyson Foerster.
New Jersey finished things off with an empty-netter.
The Flyers (27-30-8) are a head-scratching 0-4-0 on their season-long seven-game homestand, a stretch in which they’ve been outscored 17-6. After selling off three players at Friday’s NHL trade deadline, the Flyers were swept in a back-to-back set and scored only one goal.
John Tortorella’s club is 1-9-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets and has been outscored 45-25. The Flyers were coming off a 4-1 loss Saturday afternoon to the Kraken, a performance that prompted Tortorella to admit his team was “going the wrong direction.”
The Flyers went 2-2-0 against the Devils (34-25-6) this season. New Jersey is without Jack Hughes for the rest of the season after the star center underwent shoulder surgery four days ago.
• Matvei Michkov didn’t play the final 8:50 minutes off the first period. The 20-year-old winger was slow to get back on the Devils’ game-opening goal by Cody Glass.
Michkov was back on the ice for his regular shifts in the second period. Tortorella has said that the prized rookie will sit from time to time if the Flyers feel he’s repeating a mistake.
“I’m not going to fail him by cowering away from situations that people may second-guess or whatever it may be,” the head coach said at the end of January when he benched Michkov during a game. “We’re going to do it the right way with this kid because we think he’s that special. So it’s my job to do that no matter what happens.”
The prized rookie came in leading the Flyers in scoring since the 4 Nations Face-Off break with 11 points (four goals, seven assists) over seven games. He also had a plus-5 rating.
In the loss Sunday, he went scoreless and was a minus-3.
• Ivan Fedotov converted 20 saves on 22 shots.
Erik Haula had a bouncing puck go directly to him in the circle and blasted it home to extend New Jersey’s lead to 2-0 during the second period.
New Jersey backup Jake Allen stopped 23 of the Flyers’ 24 shots.
• The Flyers are in a real fight trying to generate offense.
They had their only power play in the third period and recorded just one shot.
Drysdale then got them on the board to make things interesting. The Flyers will hope Konecny’s assist sparks their leading scorer. Konecny has no goals and three assists in eight games since the break and one goal in the last 18 games.
• After being healthy scratched for the second this season, Cam York was back in the lineup and on the Flyers’ top defensive pair.
York finished as a minus-1. His partner Travis Sanheim had a bad crosschecking penalty late in the third period.
• The Flyers are back in action Tuesday when they host Claude Giroux and the Senators (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).
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