Flyers’ win streak stops at five with 3-2 loss to New York Islanders

ELMONT, N.Y. — All good things must come to an end.

After winning five straight, the Flyers were handed a 3-2 loss by the New York Islanders. But as Sean Couturier said when the San Jose Sharks topped the Flyers on Nov. 7 — the last loss the Flyers experienced until Wednesday — it wasn’t like San Jose was going to go 0-for-82.

And it wasn’t like the Flyers were winning the final 64.

“We kept battling. We had our chances, just couldn’t finish,” Couturier said. “It was a good game overall. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get the two points, but I think we can build on that and bring it into the next game.”

Normally it is the Orange and Black opening the scoring. This time it was the Islanders who skated into the first intermission with a 1-0 lead. It was uncharted territory for a Flyers team that did not trail during the streak.

While they tried to come back, led by a Cam York backhander after he was initially denied, the Islanders hung on for the win.

As one good streak ends, a bad one rolls on as the Flyers move to 0-7-1 when the opposition scores first. But the Flyers did battle hard and pressed late in the game. They put 14 shots on goal in the final period, while allowing just four, including the eventual game winner.

“They started the period off hard in the third and then, obviously, they score and we have to claw back, and I thought we did right after that goal,” Carter Hart said. “We didn’t let it get us down and we just battled hard. ... We fought right to the end and, obviously, the two points we didn’t get tonight but tomorrow, just enjoy some Thanksgiving dinner and we’ll be ready to go Friday.”

Coach John Tortorella has continuously pointed out that an NHL season has good moments and bad ones. Now the question is how the team responds on Friday after facing its first loss in 15 days.

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Being on the ice for each of the Islanders’ first two goals is surely not how Marc Staal envisioned his first game back. Staal returned to the lineup after a 14-game absence thanks to two broken ribs. He was slotted in alongside Egor Zamula, 13 years his junior, on the third pairing.

On the Islanders’ first goal, Zamula had trouble handling a bouncing puck along the boards in the neutral zone before his clearing attempt at the blue line was blocked by Oliver Wahlstrom. The puck carried down into the corner, and Staal went to take on Wahlstrom. Anders Lee got the puck down low, and ended up tucking the puck in on his second swat at the right post.

“Obviously the first one I want back,” Hart said. “Lee just kind of drives to the net, shoves my skate off the post and then just whacks it in. I gotta be stronger on my post there ... I dissect the game, learn from it, and move on. We’re playing good hockey right now and we can’t let this discourage us.”

Staal did make a great play in the second period, showcasing the “calming presence” Travis Sanheim mentioned after the morning skate.

Less than three minutes into the period, with the score still 1-0, Zamula misplayed the puck and the Islanders broke out on a 2-on-1. Staal not only got back and went to play the pass, he ended up making a great poke-check on Jean-Gabriel Pageau to keep the Flyers in the game and prevent a scoring chance from Pageau.

But the hockey Gods giveth and taketh, and the bushy-bearded defenseman was in front of the net when Brock Nelson scored his first of the night to make it 2-0. Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech took a shot from the point and Staal was manning the far post, with Scott Laughton standing between Pelech and Nelson on the doorstep. To be fair, Nelson made a deflection that was a beauty.

“I don’t think we played bad tonight. We made a couple of mistakes and they end up in our net. The biggest thing for me is, just two or three guys, I think they’re going in the wrong direction as far as their play,” Tortorella said, without naming names.

» READ MORE: Marc Staal returns from fractured ribs, brings ‘calming presence’

Hart has been outstanding this season, especially since returning from his back injury and subsequent food poisoning. Wednesday was no different as he went save-for-save for the majority of the night with last season’s Vezina runner-up, Ilya Sorokin. Hart finished with 22 saves, while Sorokin had 34.

Trailing 1-0 in the first period, Hart stopped Alexander Romanov’s wrist shot from the left circle before making a high save off a slapshot by Mat Barzal from the same spot during an Islanders power play.

The Alberta native has been tracking the puck well of late, and he continued that on the Island. Hart made a glove stop on a short-handed Pageau and caught a sweet Lee deflection between the pads at 13 minutes, 49 seconds of the second. Hart kept the Flyers in the game, but couldn’t stop the Nelson deflection or his second goal, a tap-in, off a defensive zone breakdown.

As for Sorokin, he may have entered the game with a 3.32 goals against average, but he was stellar as the Flyers had some big-time scoring chances. He stopped Travis Konecny early on as he got past the defense less than three minutes in, and then York on a one-timer off a great pass from Bobby Brink less than two minutes later.

“We could have played better, no doubt, but [Sorokin] definitely made some saves that kept them in it,” York said. That’s hockey.”

In the second period, Walker had two chances on the power play on the doorstep, but could not bury either past Sorokin. Joel Farabee got the Flyers within one at 15:56 off a fantastic heads-up pass from Brink.

“He’s a good offensive player,” Tortorella said about Brink. “He’s willing to hold onto a puck, he’s willing to wait for plays to happen. [He] has done his job pretty well away from the puck. He’s had a good year and he’s out there when we’re trying to tie it up because he belongs out there because he makes plays.”

Walker threw a booming hit on Pageau in the second period, five seconds after he rang one off the post. He had seven shot attempts, including five shots on goal. ... Couturier almost scored for the Islanders as his pass back almost went into the net Hart vacated for the extra attacker in the last two minutes of regulation.

The Flyers will enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday before a matinee meeting with the New York Rangers on Friday at Wells Fargo (1 p.m., NBCSP).