Flyers fall to the Washington Capitals, 5-3, and lose fourth straight

After a goal late in the third period from winger Gerry Mayhew put the Flyers up 3-2, it seemed like the team was on its way to victory for the second time this month.

Then, as it often has for the Flyers this season, the bottom fell out in a 5-3 loss to the Washington Capitals at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday.

Less than 15 seconds after Mayhew’s goal, Garnet Hathaway deflected a shot past goalie Martin Jones to tie the score with less than three minutes to go in the third period. Then, Hathaway scored the game-winning goal roughly two minutes later. A long-distance John Carlson empty-netter with less than a minute to go sealed the Flyers’ fate in a 5-3 loss and extended their latest skid to four games.

A nightmare of a final three minutes erased plenty of strong play from the Flyers, especially in the second period when they outshot the Capitals, 12-6.

“Honestly, I don’t even know what to say right now,” interim head coach Mike Yeo said. “You play 57 minutes the way that we did. And you leave the game feeling that way. That’s pretty tough. So in some ways you’re thinking about the good things that you did and how we can be confident going up against any team, knowing that even when we’re short with players, when we play our team game that we do, that we can have success. But we walk away with nothing here tonight.”

With their loss, the Flyers are still looking for their first post-All Star break win. They have won just two of 17 games in 2022.

“You wake up in the morning and it’s a new day,” center Scott Laughton said. “You work as hard as you can to try and get better and close out those games. But it’s a [bad] feeling.”

With the score tied at 1 halfway through the second period, winger Isaac Ratcliffe was called for interference against defenseman Michal Kempny, sending the Flyers’ 24th-ranked penalty-kill unit to the ice. One minute and 15 seconds into the kill, which started out strong for the Flyers with a clear and a blocked shot, winger Cam Atkinson was called for a delay of game when he sent the puck over the glass.

While the Flyers killed off all 45 seconds of the Capitals’ two-man advantage, they still had to kill off a 1:15 of a 5-on-4 that immediately followed. Center Joe Snively made the Flyers pay for their penalties, collecting his own rebound and scoring on Jones to put the Capitals up, 2-1. However, the Capitals didn’t carry any momentum into the remainder of the second period after their man advantages. The Flyers surged offensively for the next five minutes, culminating in a Travis Sanheim goal off the rush to tie the game at 2-2.

“You look back on that game, and you see a loss, but I mean, we played a good game,” winger Travis Konecny said. “We worked hard. Everyone was buying in. There’s something to take from it. It’s obviously hard to process right now.”

Coming out to start the second period, Yeo moved winger Oskar Lindblom off the top line with Claude Giroux and Cam Atkinson and moved up Mayhew in his place. Lindblom assumed Mayhew’s former role on the third line alongside Morgan Frost and Max Willman. In 3:07 of 5-on-5 ice time, the Mayhew-Giroux-Atkinson line registered five shot attempts and only allowed one shot.

The Flyers’ power play has struggled with clean entries and seamless puck movement this season. As a result, their man advantage ranked 30th in the league (14.4%) heading into the game. However, Mayhew’s second-power play unit displayed sound chemistry when defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk was called for an instigator misconduct penalty in the second period. From the top of the right face-off circle, Frost passed the puck to Ratcliffe, who tapped the puck back to Lindblom at the right dot. Lindblom found Mayhew at the bottom of the left face-off circle and sent a wrist shot past goalie Ilya Samsonov to tie the score at 1.

“Gerry’s been great for us,” Konecny said. “I feel like every time we need a play or the team might be down, Gerry’s always that guy who’s moving his feet. You know what you’re going to get from him. He’s going to work hard. He’s going to put pucks to the net. He’s getting rewarded for doing the right things.”

After a five-game layoff dating to Jan. 25 between starts, Jones got the nod in net against the Capitals. Jones looked solid in the first period, denying seven of the Capitals’ eight shots on goal. One of his most impressive saves came halfway through the period off a three-man rush when Capitals star Alex Ovechkin set winger Conor Sheary up for a tip-in, but Jones was in position to turn the puck aside.

Defenseman Michal Kempny scored on a slap shot from the blue line through traffic to put the Capitals up, 1-0, late in the first period. Capitals wingers Hathaway, Carl Hagelin, and Flyers defenseman Justin Braun clogged up the middle of the ice and obstructed Jones’ view of the shot. Jones faced the Capitals’ wrath on the power play in the second period, allowing Snively to score on his own rebound with chaos in front of the net. A deflection and a defensive breakdown aided the Capitals in their late comeback that saw Jones give two more in the third. In total, Jones saved 20 of 24 shots on goal.

The Flyers play against the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday at 3 p.m. in the first of back-to-back home games.