Flyers Dismantled By Penguins’ Powerplay in Monday Night Loss

It was not the Flyers’ best game on Monday night.

The Philadelphia Flyers showed their fatigue, playing their fifth game in eight days. They fell 5-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins, playing with a shortened bench for half of the game.

With the loss, their record dropped to 14-8-3 this season. Tyson Foerster scored the lone goal for Philadelphia. Here is how the game reached its final score.

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Flyers fall flat

It was not a very fast start to the game. Bobby Brink had some juice going early, having three of the Flyers’ first six shots. Aside from that, there was not much else going on for Philadelphia.

The Flyers would have an early chance on the man-advantage after Blake Lizotte gave Garnet Hathaway a spear to the groin area. After a slashing penalty, Philly’s power-play would take the ice, but their passing woes heightened during the opportunity. Nothing would come from the power play.

The Penguins started to pick up some momentum as the period rolled on. Eventually, they would get one past Dan Vladar.

Who else but Sidney Crosby to get the scoring in the game? Crosby would net what would end up being just one of two even-strength tallies of the game, assisted by Bryan Rust and Anthony Mantha.

In the second, the Flyers would get another chance on the power play. Back-to-back penalties by the Penguins gave the Flyers the five-on-three advantage. With time winding down on the first penalty, Tyson Foerster (10) would even the score, assisted by Travis Konecny (15) and Trevor Zegras (16).

Another delayed penalty would keep the Flyers at five-on-three, but nothing would come of that chance. Instead, the Flyers took a hit when Foerster exited the game with an upper-body injury after a one-timer attempt.

From there, it was all Pittsburgh.

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Penguins pile on

Just under three minutes after the Foerster goal, Crosby answered with a power-play goal of his own – the first of three straight for the Penguins.

A little less than eight minutes after, Rust netted a power-play goal after picking up the primary helper on Crosby’s second goal. All of a sudden, it was 3-1 Penguins, and they would take that lead into the second intermission.

Between being outbattled, down a key contributor, and letting the second-ranked Penguins’ power play stay on the ice, the Flyers seemed out of the game.

Early in the third period, it looked like Evgeni Malkin had really scored the dagger, but after a brief coaches’ challenge, Pittsburgh’s fourth goal was waived off.

The Flyers battled and showed a bit more life, but eventually, Tommy Novak would really halt any Philadelphia attempt at a comeback. Novak scored Pittsburgh’s third-straight power-play goal and extended their lead to three.

To bookend the combined four-consecutive power-play tallies, former Flyer Kevin Hayes was sprung on a breakaway by Parker Wortherspoon and potted the backhanded shot with just under four and a half minutes remaining.

Philly would not score in the final minutes of the game, dropping the contest 5-1 to the Penguins.

What’s next for the Flyers

The Flyers stay at home when they take on the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. EST at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

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