Flyers fall to Minnesota despite late comeback attempt, end two-game winning streak

ST. PAUL, Minn. ― The last time these two teams faced off it was a wild — no pun intended — 7-5 win for the Flyers.

But Saturday afternoon was the polar opposite with the Flyers losing 4-1 to the Minnesota Wild. The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for the Flyers.

The Flyers tried a late comeback with Travis Sanheim getting the Flyers on the board with just over five minutes remaining. He took a pass from Ryan Poehling and buried the puck past Marc-André Fleury for his sixth goal of the year. Poehling started the play by the Flyers’ blue line when he knocked the puck away from Kirill Kaprizov and the Orange and Black transitioned up the ice.

But Minnesota entered the game with the third-best record in the NHL at 19-6-4 and it wasn’t losing this one. After all, the Wild were 9-0-1 when leading after the first period and 13-0-0 when leading after the second. They held the lead after each period, and scored two in the third, including a Kaprizov empty-netter with 2 minutes, 10 seconds left to seal it.

“Liked our game. Had chances and obviously couldn’t capitalize and they did on theirs,” Sanheim said. “They’re a tough team to play against. They play a hard style and it would be nice to capitalize a little bit more. I felt like we were deserving of a better outcome.”

At one end of the ice was 25-year-old Flyers goalie Sam Ersson in his second full season in the NHL. At the other was Fleury tending the twine in his 21st — and last — NHL season.

Fleury plans to retire at the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean the 40-year-old will go quietly into the night. The future Hockey Hall of Famer stopped 21 of 22 shots and made a vintage dazzling glove save to rob Travis Konecny in the first period.

With the Wild breaking out, defenseman Jonas Brodin tried to find forward Reese Johnson but it instead went to Joel Farabee. The Flyers forward turned around and went on the attack, feeding Konecny, who had an open net until he didn’t as Fleury leaned back and snared the puck with his glove on the shot from the right faceoff circle.

“We know he’s an aggressive goalie. You want to get him moving and he’s pretty athletic,” Sanheim said. “The thing with him is he’s a competitive guy. He’s never out of it when you think you have him beat. He made a good save on that one.”

Ersson, for his part, was going to save-for-save with the elder statesman for much of the game. Making his third start since returning from a lower-body injury, he looked comfortable between the pipes and finished with 19 saves on 22 shots, allowing a trio of goals.

“Today was a step forward in some areas where I’m trying to make some work on, but obviously when you get the loss there’s definitely other things that you want to keep working at,” Ersson said. “I’ll keep going here.”

Kaprizov scored his first of the game in the first period when his shot went off Ersson’s mask and into a tiny space between the mask and the pipe. The Russian star scored from the goal line after he collected a shot by Jon Merrill that went off the end boards.

“I feel like I kind of picked it up too late what he was going to try to do,” Ersson said. “It’s a good shot, obviously, but I think I can do something different to get that save.

“He’s a skilled player. I don’t think it’s luck for him. He definitely tries to do that, but for me, maybe just got to find a way to come up with a couple of extra saves, just to keep the team in it for a little bit longer.”

In the second period, Ersson came up big, stopping Marcus Foligno twice. The first time was during a Flyers power play when he skated in two-on-one. Ersson made the key save with his blocker, allowing the Flyers to head the other way for a scoring chance by Matvei Michkov. Ersson then stopped Foligno again later in the game from the slot.

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But during four-on-four action, Matt Boldy got a breakaway off a Brock Faber outlet pass that sent him past the Flyers defense of Egor Zamula and Jamie Drysdale. Boldy made a quick dip and scored under the outstretched pad of Ersson to make it 2-0.

Marco Rossi extended it to 3-0 in the third period when he received a pass from Mats Zuccarello in the left circle and scored glove side. The play started with a stretch pass by Declan Chisholm.

Aside from Fleury’s highlight-reel save, the Flyers had their chances to get one past the three-time Stanley Cup champion.

Early in the first period, Rasmus Ristolainen jumped up in the play and had two good scoring chances from the right faceoff circle. Then, after it was 1-0 Minnesota, Scott Laughton had a breakaway chance off a stretch pass by Cam York but was hit in the face with a high stick and didn’t get a shot off. Merrill was called for high-sticking.

In the second period, on the power play, Konecny had the best chance to get the Flyers on the board again. This time, the puck popped out to Bobby Brink in the slot. He faked a shot and sent the puck over to Konecny at the left post. He had an open net but it looked like the puck hit the stick of Michkov as he got behind Fleury.

“I’ve seen it before. I wish I didn’t see it tonight,” coach John Tortorella said.

The Flyers had three power-play opportunities in the game with 11 shot attempts, including five shots on goal. The majority came on their second power play in the first period. After not registering a shot attempt on the first, which was a short 62 seconds, they had seven on the next one with Konecny hitting the post.

“Some good movement,” Tortorella said. “It looked sharp, especially the first unit, but we have opportunities. TK has a chance where it hits Mich’s stick with an open net. That’s a really important time of the game, it ties the game up [if he scores]. So we don’t finish, they do. I thought we put in some really good minutes against a really good team and we just don’t score the goals, they do.”

According to Natural Stat Trick, at five-on-five, the shot attempts were almost identical with the Flyers getting two more (36-34) in the game. The Flyers had 17 shot attempts in the third period as they tried to come back. Across all strengths, Natural Stat Trick put the Flyers at just three high-danger chances to the Wild’s six.

“We didn’t finish,” Tortorella said. “They finished on their chances. We had some high-quality chances, I think probably more than them. We don’t finish.”

The last time these two teams met, a 7-5 Flyers win on Oct. 26, Garnet Hathaway earned a $5,000 fine from the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for elbowing forward Joel Eriksson Ek. During the second period Saturday, Hathaway was assessed a minor penalty for roughing Eriksson Ek, who had suffered a broken nose earlier in the month.

Hathaway was also involved in a scrum with just over two minutes remaining in the game when his stick got tangled up with Mats Zuccarello. Laughton and Zuccarello then took shots at each other before everyone got involved. Hathaway grabbed Eriksson Ek and was called for hooking Zuccarello while the Wild forward got a minor for roughing against Laughton.

Foligno called it “[expletive]” that Zuccarello went to the box by himself, although Hathaway was penalized, too. In a follow-up question, he was asked about Hathaway taking shots at Eriksson Ek and playing a rough game and said, “That’s the way the guy plays. That’s how he has to stay relevant in this league.”

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In the first period, Hathaway and Foligno were on the ice together. While Hathaway was gliding above the Flyers blue line as the puck went down the ice for an icing, Foligno bumped him from behind. Hathaway turned around and shoved him, and the two dropped the gloves. It wasn’t much of a fight as it ended before any punches were really landed because Hathaway slipped and fell, and Foligno ended up on top of him. Both players were assessed five minutes for fighting.

Foligno also was called for roughing in the second period, along with Sanheim, after a scrum in front of the Flyers net. It was during this four-on-four Boldy scored.

Four Minnesotans suited up to play for the Flyers: Nick Seeler (Eden Prairie), Noah Cates (Stillwater), Brink (Minnetonka), and Poehling (Lakeville). Defenseman Erik Johnson (Bloomington) was a healthy scratch. ... The Flyers went 0-for-3 on the power play and 1-for-1 on the penalty kill.

The Flyers will head home for a few days before a Wednesday night visit to the Detroit Red Wings (7 p.m., TNT, truTV, max).