Flyers comeback falls short in 5-4 loss to Claude Giroux, Ottawa Senators

OTTAWA — Claude Giroux now has five career points in three games against the Flyers after scoring his 29th goal of the season in the Ottawa Senators’ 5-4 overtime win Thursday.

The Senators are 2-1 against the Flyers with Giroux.

Giroux was sick, but he didn’t look like it, zipping around the ice and showing off his skill. He had six shots on goal and won nine of 15 faceoffs.

He and his teammates dominated the Flyers through 40 minutes by disrupting the transition game and beating them with speed. But the Flyers finally got back to their game in the third.

“At intermission, guys were talking and really trying to find solutions,” Noah Cates said. “We were talking about rimming pucks, getting the wingers close to the blue line so we can chip it out a little easier.”

The third opened with the Senators up, 3-1, and Giroux quickly added a fourth. In less than five minutes, rookies Cam York and Cates closed the gap to one. They had 10 minutes left to tie it, which Owen Tippett did with 2:39 left, sending it to overtime and earning a point.

Overtime ended in less than two minutes when goalie Felix Sandstrom went back to play the puck and turned it over, leading to Alex DeBrincat’s game-winning goal.

“It’s disappointing to see the way the game ends after him playing so well for us for the first 60 minutes,” said assistant coach Brad Shaw, who ran the bench while coach John Tortorella watched from above.

The Flyers knew the Senators would come out strong.

“They have a tough schedule coming up,” Tortorella said pregame. “I think they see this as a game that they have to have because we’re probably one of the lesser teams that they’re going to play, if I can put it that way.”

But forewarned was not forearmed. The Flyers had a shot from outside in the first 27 seconds and a nice attempt off the rush by James van Riemsdyk — and that was it.

By the end of the first, they were down 17-2 in shots and 1-0 in goals. Things did not get better in the second, which they finished 27 shots to five. They finished the game with 11 shots to the Senators’ 46.

The Flyers came close to scoring their first power play goal in five chances Tuesday, but the clock expired just before Morgan Frost’s goal. However, they were still able to build off of it the next game.

Despite some initial sloppiness (Tippett tripped on the entry, Kevin Hayes whiffed on a pass and Rasmus Ristolainen let the puck trickle over the blue line), the Flyers pulled it together and created several opportunities, including a shot from Frost right in front of the net.

The Senators got in front of Frost’s shot before it reached the net, but the Flyers recovered the puck and passed it to Tony DeAngelo above the right faceoff circle. Surveying the space in front of him, DeAngelo took the third shot on goal and scored. In the third, Cates added a second. It was their first game with more than one power play goal since Jan. 22.

“We’ve been moving it around good, starting to get more pucks to the net,” DeAngelo said. “It’s been a sore spot all year, so good to get a couple.”

With just over four minutes left in the first period, the Flyers active-leading scorer Tippett sent the Senators leading scorer Tim Stützle hard into the boards.

From there, the game increased in intensity, culminating in three fights in less than a minute of game time. Joel Farabee was the first to drop the gloves as he took on DeBrincat. Then Nicolas Deslauriers dropped the gloves with Austin Watson. As the referees led Deslauriers to the box, he stopped to fight Mark Kastelic, smashing him against the glass of the penalty box where Farabee looked on in glee.

Deslauriers received a misconduct, but Farabee wasn’t alone for long. Kieffer Bellows served a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty and Scott Laughton sat for roughing. Shortly after they got out, Ivan Provorov went in for tripping.

In all, the Flyers served 31 penalty minutes in the second period. That helped the Senators increase their lead to 3-1 with Shane Pinto scoring a power play goal.

The Flyers head home to host the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday at 7 p.m. The Flyers will hold a pregame ceremony to honor broadcaster Steve Coates, who announced his retirement Friday.