Flyers’ power play stays cold in 3-2 loss to Hurricanes

It’s difficult to win hockey games when you have an impotent power play. The Flyers have skated by even with that reality at times during this young season.

Monday night, against one of the better teams in the NHL, it was the difference maker. The Flyers wasted five opportunities while their opponent took advantage of their only chance with the man-advantage.

Teuvo Teravainen broke a tie with 3 minutes, 47 seconds to play and the Hurricanes beat the Flyers, 3-2, at the Wells Fargo Center. Teravainen’s goal came after a third period in which the Flyers largely controlled play against a team that’s among the Stanley Cup favorites.

“I think we played our ass off tonight,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “They kind of jumped us, but as the game went on, we played hard.”

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The Flyers played well against another top opponent. They skated toe-to-toe with the likes of Dallas, Vegas, and now Carolina over the last 10 days, but they came away with just one point in those three games.

“I’m not going to stand up here all year long and talk about moral victories, but I got to remember where we are in the organization and the process that we’re at,” Tortorella said.

The Flyers fell to 4-4-1 while Carolina improved to 6-4-0.

When you’re getting beat during 5-on-5 play, the great equalizer can be taking advantage when you’re on the power play.

Right now, nothing is coming easy for the Flyers’ power play units. They did score twice Thursday night vs. Minnesota, but there was a bit of puck luck involved in both of the goals.

Monday vs. Carolina, the Flyers couldn’t get anything going when the Hurricanes gave them the man-advantage. The Flyers tallied just seven shots on goal during their five power-play attempts.

On one of the power plays, they attempted just a single shot — and it missed the net.

The Flyers have had the league’s worst power play unit over the least three seasons.

“I thought it was inconsistent tonight,” Tortorella said. “I thought we threw a lot of pucks into pressure instead of away from pressure.”

For two periods, it was easy to see the talent and depth gap between the two clubs. But in the third, the Flyers and Hurricanes at times looked like equals. The Flyers controlled most of the period but couldn’t convert.

Late in the third period, Teravainen got free in the slot after Noah Cates failed to clear the puck and beat Carter Hart up high.

After Teravainen’s goal, the Flyers barely had the puck. The Hurricanes were able to control the puck in the Flyers’ zone as time ticked away.

The Flyers didn’t register a shot on goal over the final five minutes. When they tallied their final shot, they had a 12-6 shot advantage in the period.

“Not capitalizing on them, sooner or later against a really good hockey team, we just need to bury one of those,” Tortorella said. “It comes back and bites us.”

“When you get hemmed in your zone it’s tough to score goals, but we stuck with it,” winger Garnet Hathaway said.

During Saturday afternoon’s loss to Anaheim, Owen Tippett led all skaters with eight shots on net. That was two days after scoring his first goal of the season in a five-shot performance vs. Minnesota.

Tortorella said Monday morning that he liked where Tippett’s game was trending, but he wanted him to be even stronger on the puck.

Fifteen minutes into the first period, Tippett intercepted an errant Martin Necas pass as Tyson Foerster and Sean Couturier applied pressure in the neutral zone. Tippett then sent the puck over to Couturier and burst into the offensive zone, where Couturier hit him with a pass and he sent the puck by Frederik Andersen to tie the game at 1-1.

The Flyers are perfect in one department in this young NHL season: challenges. After successfully challenging a Minnesota goaltender interference that negated a Wild goal Thursday, the Flyers correctly challenged an offsides that led to a tying Carolina goal less than four minutes into the second period.

The Hurricanes did tie the score at 2-2 five minutes later when Michael Bunting blasted a one-timer by Hart on the power play.

Hathaway scored his first goal as a Flyer, giving Philadelphia a 2-1 lead 18 minutes, 23 seconds into the first period. ... Hart started in his 200th career NHL game Monday night. He made 30 saves.

The Flyers practice Tuesday in Voorhees before finishing their four-game homestand Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center vs. the Buffalo Sabres (7 p.m., TNT), the first half of a two-game, home-and-home set that concludes Friday in Buffalo (7 p.m., NBC Sports Philadelphia).