Flyers fall to Penguins as they lose key piece and the game in second period originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Things went downhill for the Flyers on Monday night not long after Tyson Foerster went up the tunnel in pain.
Advertisement
The Flyers were rolled by the Penguins, 5-1, at Xfinity Mobile Arena. They also lost one of their top young goal scorers to an injury.
Foerster exited in a 1-1 game during the second period and did not return. He suffered an upper-body injury while unloading a shot on the Flyers’ second 5-on-3 power play.
“That’s tough,” Travis Konecny said. “He’s such a big part of the team, the locker room, everything. It’s definitely difficult; we’ll see where that’s at.”
After the Flyers came up empty on the 5-on-3 chance, Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust each scored power play goals to give Pittsburgh control of the game in the middle stanza. Rodrigo Abols and Sean Couturier were both whistled for holding penalties.
Advertisement
It was a massive momentum swing. Just 43 seconds prior to suffering his injury, Foerster tied the game on the Flyers’ first 5-on-3 opportunity.
Coming off an impressive 3-1-0 road trip, Rick Tocchet’s club did not have a good start to this season-long six-game homestand.
“All year long we’ve responded well after losses, bad efforts,” Couturier said. “We’ve got to forget about this one and move on.”
The Flyers were playing their fifth game in eight days.
“We had a chunk of guys that, I don’t know, just weren’t in it tonight,” Tocchet said. “It’s a learning lesson. I’m going to give them the day off tomorrow, hopefully they can reset after this road trip. We’ve had a pretty good run here. We just can’t be reading our press clippings, too. I think we got a little bit too comfortable at the start, got a little bit too cute and I think that we’ve got to be careful.”
Advertisement
For a second time this season, the Flyers (14-8-3) had a three-game winning streak snapped. They haven’t won four in a row since Feb. 6-12 of the 2023-24 season.
“It just kind of felt like a sleepy effort from us,” Noah Cates said. “Not a lot of focus, not a lot of jam to our game.”
The Flyers are 1-1-0 in their four-game regular-season series against the Penguins (13-7-5). The first meeting saw some blood boil late in a 3-2 shootout win for the Flyers.
• Dan Vladar made 22 saves on 27 shots.
With two goals, Crosby continued to torture the Flyers. He now has 59 regular-season markers against the Flyers, the most of any player all-time.
Advertisement
“They’ve got championship pedigree, they were well-coached tonight,” Tocchet said. “They stuck to their game plan, they went north on us.”
In the final frame, Tommy Novak added a third power play goal for Pittsburgh. Not even two minutes later, Kevin Hayes scored the Penguins’ fifth goal.
The Flyers’ fourth-ranked penalty kill went just 1 for 4.
“All year the PK has been great for us,” Couturier said. “Tonight, we didn’t have it, they picked us apart. It happens. We’ve got to fix it and get back on track next game.”
Pittsburgh netminder Tristan Jarry stopped 28 of the Flyers’ 29 shots.
• Despite coming off his first two-goal effort of the season, Matvei Michkov was the first player on the ice Monday at the Flyers’ morning skate.
Advertisement
The 20-year-old winger did a lot of work in close and around the net with assistant coach Jay Varady. After Michkov failed to score on a couple of attempts, you could hear his competitiveness take over.
“He wanted to work on the down-low stuff, the backdoor, getting the puck up,” Tocchet said after morning skate. “It’s funny, he was getting mad at himself, but that’s him, he wants to look at other avenues of scoring. And that’s one of them he can be really good at.”
Michkov was right there battling around the net on Foerster’s goal. He didn’t have a point on the night, but he has looked so much more like himself over the last three and a half weeks.
The Flyers will need more of that, too, if Foerster is to miss time.
• During the first period, Blake Lizotte gave Garnet Hathaway a blatant shot to the jewels right in front of the Flyers’ bench. Hathaway had just finished a hit on Lizotte, who then retaliated with his stick.
Advertisement
The Flyers failed to capitalize on the ensuing power play. Nineteen seconds later, Crosby had them in a 1-0 hole.
• The Flyers are back in action Wednesday when they host the Sabres (7:30 p.m. ET/TNT).
