John Tortorella’s club drops to third straight – NBC Sports Philadelphia

On December 20, 2024By Littum

A trip home couldn’t stop the bleeding for the Flyers.

They fell to the Kings, 7-3, Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center.

Tyson Foerster had the second three-point game of his career (two goals, one assist). His second marker gave the Flyers their first lead at 3-2 in the second period. It came off a nice feed from Morgan Frost seven seconds after a power play expired.

But Anze Kopitar got it back for Los Angeles and tied the game with 44 seconds left in the second period.

Warren Foegele gave the Kings their lead back in the first two minutes of the third period, and Kopitar followed with his second. Los Angeles added an empty netter and a seventh goal for good measure.

“It’s just too bad you’re tied into the third period at home, that’s where you want to be,” Frost said. “We have to figure out a way to shut it out.”

The Flyers (14-15-4) have lost three in a row by a combined score of 17-8. They are also 2-5-1 in December. They were coming off a poor performance in Detroit, a 6-4 loss Wednesday night to the Red Wings.

“I don’t think we played well last night,” Tortorella said before the game. “I just want us to rebound the right way against a stingy team, a big team, a team that’s waiting for us here. I want to see how we respond. It’s still early in the year, but I don’t want to play two bad games in a row And we usually don’t, I think we’ve played some good hockey but last night we just weren’t there.

Tortorella’s club is 1-5-0 in the second round of back-to-back sets and has been outscored 29-17.

The Flyers have two more games before the NHL-mandated holiday break.

“Everybody says after the break it’s going to be harder,” Foerster said. “So these games are big.”

The Kings (19-9-4), playing the fifth game of a seven-game road trip, took it to the Flyers in the third period. The Flyers will see Los Angeles again in 10 days when they visit Crypto.com Arena.

“It’s a good hockey club, it’s a team that checks very well,” Tortorella said. “A good challenge for us here. I thought we did well for 40 minutes but we couldn’t find our way through 60.”

• Aleksei Kolosov had 20 saves on 26 shots.

The Kings’ 4-3 go-ahead goal early in the third period took a bad deflection off Ryan Poehling’s stick.

Kolosov couldn’t cover the puck on Los Angeles’ second and third goals.

The 22-year-old rookie entered 4-0-1 over his previous five starts.

Kings netminder Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 of the Flyers’ 26 shots.

“I think we had a great second there and in the third they just took a lot of their chances,” Foerster said. “We tried to push and we got caught a couple of times.”

Noah Cates and Tyson Foerster spoke to the media after the Flyers fell to the Kings, 7-3, on Thursday night.

• With Cam York on the bench, the Flyers had three new defensemen. None of them finished with a positive plus-minus.

“There were some struggles there,” Tortorella said.

Emil Andrae entered the line-up and played together with Egor Zamula.

Travis Sanheim and Jamie Drysdale had a rough night together. They were on the ice for five of Los Angeles’ goals.

In the first period, Kevin Fiala took the top off the Flyers’ defense by splitting the pair and ending a breakaway.

Noah Cates erased the Flyers’ 1-0 deficit 3:18 minutes later with his third goal in the last five games.

But 1:31 minutes into the second period, Tanner Jeannot buried a loose puck in front to put the Flyers back down. Sanheim, Drysdale and Frost were all near the puck. Kolosov also failed to glove it in the crease.

The Flyers tied it back about 10 minutes later on Foerster’s first of the night. Scott Laughton made a nice play right after the Flyers killed Foerster’s high-sticking penalty.

“I think the biggest thing is that one collapse can’t lead to two,” Cates said. “I think right now you kind of see us compound mistakes.”

• Travis Konecny and Matvei Michkov were scoreless. For Michkov, it was his fourth game in a row without a point. The 20-year-old rookie was a minus-4 and played 12:19 minutes.

• The Flyers are back in action Saturday when they host the Blue Jackets (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).