The Flyers dug themselves too deep too early Tuesday night, and by the time they found their footing against Minnesota, the damage was already done.
Philadelphia fell 4-2 at Xfinity Mobile Arena after the Wild jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the opening six minutes, then stretched it to 3-0 early in the second period. The Flyers made a push from there, but they never fully erased the early hole.
Minnesota’s top line set the tone right away. Matt Boldy opened the scoring at 4:06, then Michael McCarron made it 2-0 just 31 seconds later when he was left alone in front and beat Dan Vladar on a short shot. The Wild controlled the period even though they held only an 8-7 edge in shots.
The second period brought more of the same. Joel Eriksson Ek scored 42 seconds after the opening faceoff to push the lead to 3-0, and the Flyers were left chasing the game again.
Still, Philadelphia didn’t fold. Tyson Foerster tipped Jamie Drysdale’s shot past Jesper Wallstedt at 14:27 of the second, and Denver Barkey cut it to 3-2 with his first goal of the season on the power play at 1:48 of the third.
That rally gave the building a pulse, but the tying goal never came.
“I thought we played a pretty good game,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “Obviously you can’t stake a team like that, three-nothing.
For me, it’s missed chances. We had 23 missed opportunities, nine or 10 scoring chances where we missed the net.
“This is where we can learn from (the Wild’s Matt) Boldy. He shoots for a rebound.
He doesn’t try to score. We try to score from those places, we shoot wide.
We need to make the goalie handle it. We have to get better at that.
Twenty-three missed shots. We have to hit the net.
Those are the difference-makers.”
Drysdale said the Flyers didn’t help themselves by spotting Minnesota those early goals.
“It’s never fun giving up two goals that early, back-to-back,” said Jamie Drysdale. “I thought we actually played a decent game. I thought we had a chance there (in the third period).”
The power play, which has been an issue for years and started slowly again this season, has shown signs of life lately. Drysdale said that’s a good sign.
“We’re figuring it out,” Drysdale said. “I think we’re moving it well.
Even when we don’t score, I think we got looks. We have to keep going because I think we have an opportunity to impact the game down even more.”
Foerster felt the late push could carry some value even in defeat.
“We had a couple good looks to tie it there late,” he said. “Ultimately we couldn’t do it but it was a good start in the right direction.”
Travis Konecny saw the same kind of response from his team.
“It reminded me of last year,” he said. “As long as we stuck to our plan, we knew we were going to give ourselves a chance. Just limiting those mistakes (only five of the Flyers’ 18 position players didn’t have a giveaway against the Wild) and we’re right in the game.”
The Flyers have struggled when opponents score first, and that trend showed up again here. They are 1-7-3 in those games.
“It’s frustrating,” said Konecny, “but everybody is really positive. Once we started playing, you could just see we weren’t giving up much. We were coming.”
Minnesota’s win snapped a four-game (0-4-0) losing streak in Philadelphia.
The Flyers also paid tribute to Bobby Brink, now with the Wild, with a video presentation before the game. Brink rose from the Minnesota bench when it ended, smiled, and waved to the crowd, which answered with a loud cheer.
Philadelphia now heads to Madison Square Garden on Thursday night to face the New York Rangers. That begins a five-game road trip that will take the Flyers out west for three games before ending in Columbus.
Konecny’s multi-point game against Utah on Sunday was the 128th of his career, moving him past Rick Tocchet into 14th place on the Flyers’ all-time list.
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