It was a day for breaking streaks — but not for the Flyers, whose skid extended to 11 with their 6-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
The Sabres, who are 13-21-7, had not won at home since Nov. 26. Helped by Flyers penalties and their power play unit, which went three-for-four, the Sabres snapped their nine-game home skid with a dominant win.
Despite giving up the first goal, the Flyers quickly responded with goals from former Sabre Rasmus Ristolainen and Claude Giroux. They had momentum and the lead going into the final five minutes of the first.
Then the Sabres went on the power play. The Flyers penalty kill had effectively killed an earlier power play without giving up a shot. They started the second with a clear but it was followed with a goal by Tage Thompson. The Flyers challenged that it was offsides but lost, giving the Sabres another power play. Twenty-four seconds later, Thompson scored the go-ahead goal.
The back-to-back goals were too much for the Flyers, and when they returned to even strength, they still struggled to get out of the defensive zone. Two minutes and three seconds later, Peyton Krebs added another for Buffalo, giving the Sabres the 4-2 lead.
When Krebs was called for tripping, the Flyers had the chance to build some momentum to start the second. Instead, the Sabres sprung Krebs from the box with a pass that led to a breakaway goal.
The Flyers went to the box again in the third, setting up the Sabres’ sixth goal. The penalty kill, which has killed 79.3% of power plays faced this season, killed 25% Saturday.
Giroux scored his second, another deflection in, on a power play, but the Flyers were too far behind for it to spark a comeback. The loss marks the Flyers’ longest skid of the season, surpassing the ten-game drought during with former coach Alain Vigneault was fired.
Powerless play
After going down two while on the penalty kill, the Flyers finally got the man advantage in the second. They started off strong, moving the puck around and looking towards the net. While none of their shots made it through traffic to the goal, they had multiple attempts.
Then the Sabres cleared the puck and the second unit came on. With the exception of Keith Yandle and Oskar Lindblom, the second power play consisted of players who had been called up from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, including Wade Allison, who joined the team Friday night.
The second unit struggled to move the puck out of the neutral zone. When they finally did, the Sabres intercepted one of their passes and used it to set up a goal.
The second outing generated a shot that hit off the post and rolled off the goalie’s back as well as two other shots. The third generated three shots. The fourth was briefly a four-on-three that turned into a five-on-four. The Flyers got multiple shots off, but they were all stopped. It wasn’t until their fifth power play that they finally broke through.
Goalie switch
Friday, interim coach Mike Yeo said he needed to talk to Carter Hart and see how he was feeling before deciding who would be in goal against Buffalo. The next day, Martin Jones started.
But Jones wasn’t feeling it either. The very first shot he faced resulted in a Buffalo goal. He faced three more shots before giving up a power play goal and then another on back-to-back shots. Jones faced two more, one of which resulted in another goal, before he was pulled. He finished with four saves on eight shots faced.
Hart started slightly better. He stopped two shots before he gave up a goal. Hart made 16 saves on 18 shots faced.
Phantom presence
With Joel Farabee and Kevin Hayes on injured reserve, the Flyers had to call up Wade Allison and Jackson Cates from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Before that transaction, the Flyers already had four players up from their AHL team.
When the Flyers took the ice in Buffalo, there was at least one Phantom on three of the four forward lines and one of the the three defensive pairings. Both the third and fourth lines, which Yeo had said have been weaknesses for the Flyers, each had two.
On Saturday, all three of the Sabres goals were scored with at least two call-ups on the ice. Morgan Frost, who has played the most NHL games nest to Max Willman, was negative-2, as was Cam York, who has spent time on the top defensive pairing. Allison re-injured himself and did not play the third period, leaving the Flyers short-handed.
