Flyers fall 2-1 in overtime to Predators after a defensive struggle

The Flyers started off their weekend back-to-back with their second overtime game in a row. But with a 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators on Saturday, the Flyers have not won back-to-back games since early January.

It was Marvel Super Hero Day at the Wells Fargo Center, with mini Spidermans and Iron Mans looking on as the puck dropped between the Flyers and the Predators. But the game started slow without any film-worthy moments. After 10 minutes, the teams had a combined five shots on goal. By the end of the first, the opponents were staring each other down in a scoreless stalemate.

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The excitement picked up in the second, with two fights and two goals, a redirection by a driving Nino Niederreiter for the Predators less than two minutes into the period and a breakaway goal by Kevin Hayes for the Flyers at the 10:40 mark. The game moved faster, with multiple chances off the rush by both teams and five combined shots that hit the post.

However, the burst of offense in the second featured the only goals of regulation, which ended with just 24 shots on goal by each team. The game headed into overtime, but unfortunately for the Flyers, it ended after just 34 seconds when Matt Duchene scored with a seeing-eye shot under the pad of Carter Hart on the first shot of overtime.

After Rasmus Ristolainen knocked Filip Forsberg out of the game with a huge hit into the boards, the Predators wanted justice. But the refs elected not to penalize Ristolainen.

“I thought it was a clean hit, an unfortunate result, so we move on,” Ristolainen said.

So the Predators took things into their own hands, much like the Marvel characters the Wells Fargo Center displayed throughout the game.

The Predators’ first attempt was foiled as there were just 1.1 seconds left on the clock when Forsberg was injured. On the final faceoff, Tanner Jeannot tried to drop the gloves with Nicolas Deslauriers, but the referees stepped in.

However, once they came back up the tunnel for the second, Jeannot not only got his punches in against Deslauriers, the Predators scored the first goal of the game almost immediately after.

That wasn’t enough to cool tempers. The rest of the game was filled with more rough stuff, as Joel Farabee fought Juuso Parssinen in addition to several other scuffles and hard hits.

“That’s what the team has developed into, on our end,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “A certain player’s [mad] at Risto ... I don’t even have a chance to make a line change, and Nick’s over the boards because he knows what the situation’s going to be there. I think all that stuff helps the room.”

The Flyers placed Kieffer Bellows on waivers Friday afternoon. However, they waited until Saturday morning to announce who they were calling up in his place.

With the game starting in a few hours and Olle Lycksell having played two AHL games in two nights before, the Flyers slotted a seventh defenseman, Justin Braun, into the lineup instead of Lycksell. As a result, the lines were out of whack all afternoon.

“We did it [seven defensemen] in Winnipeg, and I liked some of the things we did there,” Tortorella said. “Lycks, we weren’t going to play him, off of break games, it just wasn’t the right time to play him.”

But the chemistry between the forwards didn’t suffer, despite the changing faces on each line. The Flyers created good offensive opportunities with several nifty passes. Hayes’ beautiful goal, after a dizzying stickhandling display, was set up by Farabee, with whom he hadn’t played since Dec. 1. The errors that kept them from scoring on other opportunities were on an individual level rather than a teamwork level.

Neither the Flyers nor the Predators could be mistaken for an offensive juggernaut. The teams are neck-and-neck among the league’s worst-scoring teams. The Flyers average 2.69 goals, while the Predators average 2.76.

Tortorella has preached defense, knowing that his team has limited offensive power. Even so, the Flyers are in the middle of the pack when it comes to the number of goals per game they’ve allowed (3.07). The Predators have fared slightly better, allowing 2.92.

But the defensive focus defined the game. It featured more big defensive plays — blocked shots, foiled breakaways — than offensive ones, outside of a few bursts here and there. Even extended offensive zone time featured the defenses, who kept most of the shots to the outside.

“Good checking,” Ristolainen said. “Tight defensively. Just maybe not turn the puck over that much. But, yeah, I feel like we were playing a lot better and just gotta get some results this time of the year.”

The Flyers host the Seattle Kraken at 1 p.m. Sunday (NBCSP).