by Flyers lose for third straight, falling to 2-5-1 in December originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
A trip home couldn’t stop the Flyers’ bleeding.
They fell to the Kings 7-3 on 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 a 3-2 lead in the second period. It came after a nice feed from Morgan Frost seven seconds into a power play.
But Anze Kopitar got the equalizer for Los Angeles, tying the game with 44 seconds left in the second period.
Warren Foegele put the Kings back in the lead in the first two minutes of the third period, and Kopitar added his second goal. Los Angeles added an empty-net goal and a seventh goal for good measure.
“It just sucks, you go into the third half tied at home, that’s where you want to be,” Frost said. “We have to find a way to solve the problem.”
The Flyers (14-15-4) have lost three straight by a combined score of 17-8. They are also 2-5-1 in December. They had a poor performance in Detroit, losing 6-4 to the Red Wings on Wednesday night.
“I don’t think we played well last night,” Tortorella said before the game. “I just want us to recover properly against a stingy team, a big team, a team that is here waiting for us. I want to see how we react. It’s still early in the year, but I don’t want to. “We’re playing two bad games in a row. I think we played some good hockey, but we just weren’t there last night.
Tortorella’s club is 1-5-0 in consecutive sets in the second game and was outscored 29-17.
The Flyers have two games left before the NHL-mandated holiday break.
“Everyone says it will be more difficult after the break,” said Foerster. “So these games are big.”
The Kings (19-9-4), playing the fifth game of a seven-game road trip, got it done in the third period against the Flyers. The Flyers see Los Angeles again in 10 days when they visit Crypto.com Arena.
“It’s a good hockey club, it’s a team that controls very well,” said Tortorella. “A good challenge for us here. I thought we did well for 40 minutes, but we didn’t make it past 60 minutes.”
• Aleksei Kolosov made 20 saves on 26 shots.
When the Kings took a 4-3 lead early in the third period, Ryan Poehling’s stick bounced badly.
Kolosov failed to cover the puck on Los Angeles’ second and third goals.
The 22-year-old rookie has gone 4-0-1 in his last five starts.
Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 of the Flyers’ 26 shots.
“I think we had a great second there and in the third they just took advantage of a lot of their opportunities,” Foerster said. “We tried to push and got caught a few times.”
• With Cam York on the bench, the Flyers had three new defensive pairings. None of them ended with a positive plus-minus.
“There were some fights,” Tortorella said.
Emil Andrae moved into the lineup and played alongside 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 lead on the Flyers defense by splitting the pair and finishing 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 into the second period, Tanner Jeannot buried a loose puck in front to put the Flyers offside again. Sanheim, Drysdale and Frost were all near the puck. Kolosov also failed to hit the ball in the goal area.
The Flyers tied it again about 10 minutes later on Foerster’s first play of the night. Scott Laughton made a good play shortly after the Flyers converted Foerster’s big penalty.
“I think the most important thing is that one failure can’t lead to two,” Cates said. “I think right now you’re seeing us exacerbating mistakes.”
• Travis Konecny and Matvei Michkov remained scoreless. For Michkov it was the fourth game in a row without a point. The 20-year-old rookie was minus-4 and played 12:19 minutes.
• The Flyers are back in action on Saturday when they host the Blue Jackets (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).
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