Boobirds come out as Flyers play ‘sh–ty’ in 4th straight loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Flyers didn’t hear many cheers Thursday night. And when they did, some of them weren’t even genuine.
John Tortorella’s team was thoroughly outplayed by the Stars, eliciting boos in a 4-1 loss at the Wells Fargo Center.
Early in the second period, fans gave the Flyers a Bronx cheer after the team finally cleared the defensive zone. Dallas had the Flyers pinned in for a lengthy stay, forcing Samuel Ersson to sprawl all over the crease.
The eye test wasn’t good. The Flyers went into the middle stanza trailing 2-0 and left it down 3-0.
Tortorella didn’t care about the boos.
“I’m more worried about those guys,” the head coach said, pointing in the direction of the Flyers’ locker room.
Morgan Frost got the Flyers on the board in the third period. The Stars finished things off with an empty-netter.
“Obviously there’s a bit of frustration as the game goes on tonight,” Frost said. “You never want to get booed in your own arena. We didn’t really give them a ton to cheer about, we didn’t have enough life.”
Dallas was flat-out better, handing the Flyers (17-20-5) their fourth straight loss (0-3-1). It’s the Flyers’ longest skid since the six-gamer they had in October. They’ve dropped 12 of 17 games (5-10-2) since the start of December.
“Even though our record is what it is, we have not played many bad games,” Tortorella said. “We played bad tonight.”
In the morning, Tortorella discussed the importance of belief. This one couldn’t have helped the Flyers’ psyche.
“Try to wipe this one clean,” Tortorella said. “We haven’t gotten the results, but we have played some really good hockey. Tonight, we sucked.”
The Stars (26-13-1) have won six in a row. The Flyers see them again March 22 at American Airlines Center.
• Ersson couldn’t stop the Flyers’ bleeding in his return from a lower-body injury that cost him the last three games.
The Flyers didn’t make it easy for him two days after they played a strong defensive game despite losing to the Maple Leafs, 3-2. The Flyers were hoping it would carry over against Dallas but it didn’t. They gave up a lot of odd-man rushes.
“We struggled,” Tortorella said. “We played sh–ty.”
Ersson made 19 saves on 22 shots. The Stars scored twice before the halfway mark of the first period.
“The first one, I felt like it was a little bit of a weird bounce at first,” Ersson said. “He kind of just finds a way to get it in front of the net. I feel like I can make a bit of a cleaner read on that, put myself in a better spot, maybe get there better.
“The second one, I think I read it pretty well. I save the first [shot] and the second one just bounces right out to his stick. Maybe a little bit unlucky there. But there are always things you can clean up in those situations.”
The Nick Seeler-Jamie Drysdale defensive pair was on the ice for both goals. Seeler moved up to play alongside Rasmus Ristolainen in the third period, while Drysdale joined Egor Zamula.
Looking for a spark, Tortorella juggled his lines to start the middle frame. But Dallas struck again before the halfway mark of that period.
Stars backup Casey DeSmith stopped 27 of the Flyers’ 28 shots.
• In Tuesday night’s loss to Toronto, Matvei Michkov went scoreless but was very active with eight shots.
“He probably played one of his better games in over a month and gets nothing the other night,” Tortorella said Thursday at morning skate. “He was involved, his legs were there. It’s the first time I’ve seen his legs in a while.”
The momentum didn’t turn into production against Dallas. The 20-year-old rookie has two points and a minus-17 mark over the last 13 games.
• The Flyers are scheduled to practice Friday at noon ET before hosting Cutter Gauthier and the Ducks on Saturday (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).
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