Flyers losing streak extends to 11 after 6-3 loss to Sabres

It was a day for breaking streaks — but not for the Flyers, whose skid extended to 11 with a 6-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.

The Sabres, who are 13-21-7, had not won at home since Nov. 26. Helped by Flyers penalties and their power-play unit, which went 3-for-4, the Sabres snapped their nine-game home skid with a dominant win.

Captain Claude Giroux said he’s telling the team that they’re all in this together, but he feels like they’ve hit “rock bottom.”

“We can’t catch a break,” Giroux said. “I feel like we have to play a perfect game. Right now, we do one mistake, and we feel like it’s going in the back of the net.”

Despite giving up the first goal, the Flyers quickly responded with goals from former Sabre Rasmus Ristolainen and Giroux. They had momentum and the lead going into the final five minutes of the first.

Then the Sabres went on the power play. The Flyers penalty kill had effectively killed an earlier power play without giving up a shot. The Flyers started the second Buffalo power play with a clear but it was followed with a goal by Tage Thompson. The Flyers challenged that it was offsides but lost, giving the Sabres another power play. Twenty-four seconds later, Thompson scored the go-ahead goal.

“I think it could have went one way or the other,” Giroux said. “And, you know, from the bench, for me, it looks like he was offsides, but obviously, they have a better view. But that kind of killed the momentum a little bit.”

The back-to-back goals were too much for the Flyers. When they returned to even strength, they still struggled to get out of the defensive zone. Just 2 minutes, 3 seconds after Thompson’s goal, Peyton Krebs added another for a 4-2 Buffalo lead.

When Krebs was called for tripping, the Flyers had the chance to build some momentum to start the second. Instead, the Sabres sprung Krebs from the box with a pass that led to a breakaway goal.

The Flyers went to the box again in the third, setting up the Sabres’ sixth goal. The penalty kill, which has stopped 79.3% of power plays faced this season, killed 25% Saturday.

Giroux scored his second, another deflection, on a power play, but the Flyers were too far behind for it to spark a comeback. The loss marks the Flyers’ longest skid of the season, surpassing the ten-game drought that got former coach Alain Vigneault fired.

The game was the worst they’ve played in a while, interim coach Mike Yeo said. While the other losses at least showed progress, this game showed “none of that.”

“Right from the drop of the puck, certainly didn’t have the battle level that we need,” Yeo said.

After going down two while on the penalty kill, the Flyers finally got the man advantage in the second. They started off strong, moving the puck around and looking toward the net. While none of their shots made reached the goal, they had multiple attempts.

Then the Sabres cleared the puck and the second unit came on. With the exception of Keith Yandle and Oskar Lindblom, the second power play consisted of players called up from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, including Wade Allison, who joined the team Friday night.

The second unit struggled to move the puck out of the neutral zone. When they finally did, the Sabres intercepted one of their passes to set up a goal.

“I thought our top unit actually moved it around pretty well,” said Scott Laughton, who got pulled up to the second unit. “And then their guy comes out of the box, and they make a play, and it goes the other way. So we got to find a way, whoever’s up on the second unit, to make something happen.”

The second power play generated a shot that hit off the post and rolled off the goalie’s back, as well as two other shots. The third generated three shots. The fourth was briefly a four-on-three that turned into a five-on-four. The Flyers got multiple shots, but they were all stopped. It wasn’t until their fifth power play that they finally broke through.

Friday, Yeo said he needed to talk to Carter Hart and see how he was feeling before deciding who would be in goal against Buffalo. The next day, Martin Jones started.

But Jones wasn’t feeling it either. He gave up a goal on the very first shot he faced. Jones faced three more shots before giving up a power-play goal and then another on back-to-back shots. Jones faced two more, one of which resulted in another goal, before he was pulled. He finished with four saves on eight shots.

Hart started slightly better. He stopped two shots before he gave up a goal. Hart made 16 saves on 18 shots.

With Joel Farabee and Kevin Hayes on injured reserve, the Flyers had to call up Allison and Jackson Cates from the Phantoms. Before that transaction, the Flyers already had four players up from their AHL team.

When the Flyers took the ice in Buffalo, there was at least one Phantom on three of the four forward lines and one of the three defensive pairings. Both the third and fourth lines, which Yeo had said have been weaknesses for the Flyers, each had two.

All three of the Sabres’ goals were scored with at least two call-ups on the ice. Morgan Frost, who has played the most NHL games next to Max Willman, was negative-2, as was Cam York, who has spent time on the top defensive pairing. Allison reinjured himself and did not play the third period, leaving the Flyers short-handed.

“Well, they got called up because they’re part of the solution in order for us to get going here,” Giroux said. “Whoever’s in the lineup, we need to play better as a team.”

The Flyers host the Dallas Stars at 7 p.m. on Monday. They last played the Stars on Nov. 13 and lost 5-2.