Late game efforts not enough as Philadelphia Flyers lose to Lightning

The Philadelphia Flyers hoped to earn a two game win streak as they faced the Lightning in Tampa Bay.

After achieving victory in their last contest, the Philadelphia Flyers looked to even the season series with the Tampa Bay Lightning after suffering a 6-5 loss earlier in the year.

Michal Neuvirth received the start in-net from Interim Head Coach Scott Gordon and opposed Andrei Vasilevskiy against the Lightning. Vasilevskiy entered the contest with a 2.39 Goals-Against Average and a .928 save percentage. He did struggle in his last start, surrendering three goals on 28 shots. The Flyers had to test him early to try and get out to an early lead.

Tampa Bay and Philadelphia each traded scoring chances to begin the game, with the Flyers failing to convert on a power-play opportunity during that span. They did take advantage of a face-off win in the offensive zone, and Michael Raffl scored a deflection goal to make it a 1-0 game. Vasilevskiy saved a litany of shots prior to the tally, but couldn’t react to Raffl’s deflected shot quick enough.

Nikita Kucherov evened things up for Tampa Bay not long after, scoring his 17th goal of the year on a three-on-two rush in the Flyers zone. Brayden Point went on to break that tie on the power-play and gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes of play. Philadelphia blew another lead in less than a full period, giving up two straight goals in the process. The team needed to stay aggressive and not let the one goal deficit grow any further.

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Claude Giroux scored a beauty of a goal to tie the game back up early on in the second. He worked his way passed three Lightning defenders and made a nice move to get the puck by Vasilevskiy to put the score at 2-2. Steven Stamkos eventually regained the lead for Tampa, though, sniping a shot home from the slot to make it 3-2 halfway through the period. Stamkos and Kucherov both scored their second goals of the evening and gave the Lightning a 5-2 lead heading into the third.

The Flyers got one back to begin the period as Dale Weise re-directed a puck passed Vasilevskiy for his fifth tally on the year. Robert Hagg tacked on another for the Orange and Black, blasting a shot by a screened Vasilevskiy to make it a 5-4 affair. Philadelphia kept on generating pressure and Ivan Provorov tied it, netting the teams third goal in 7:05 minutes of play. It was great to see the team show more resiliency against Tampa Bay and even better to watch it come off the stick from a struggling player in Provorov.

The game went to overtime after a big kill from the Flyers shorthanded unit earlier in the stanza. Alex Killorn put it away for Tampa Bay just 18 seconds in and won the game for his team, 6-5. Giroux turned the puck over near his own zone and the Lightning immediately capitalized.

Philadelphia again couldn’t contain the top-end talent on this Lightning roster, which especially showed on the penalty kill. Tampa went two-for-three on the power-play in this game and looked nearly unstoppable once they set up in their zone. The Flyers special teams unit has been a known weakness this year. They were exposed by yet another team, possessing the inability to score on their own power-play and match the talented Tampa Bay man advantage.

The Flyers are now 15-17-4 on the 2018-19 season. Next game is Saturday against the Florida Panthers.