Flyers hope to recapture their identity and structure in second crack at Seattle Kraken

When the clock ran out against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday, there was a long list of Flyers who needed to be better, Scott Laughton said. He placed himself at the top of the list.

The Flyers gave away the puck 10 times and were the victim of 14 takeaways. They only took 32 shots. Only 18 made it to the goal. Meanwhile, they spent long minutes in their own zone, giving up 52 shots, including 21 shots on goal and four goals.

It became a vicious cycle, where their inability to get out of their own zone sapped their energy for when they finally got into the offensive zone. It made them slower and allowed the Kraken take the puck back and trap them in their own zone again.

“We had no quickness in the minds, legs, hands,” coach John Tortorella said.

» READ MORE: Back the Flyers plus-money odds against Kraken as road underdog

After rebounding from their 10-game losing streak, the Flyers have become a team that plays within their structure and forechecks hard. Even when the offense isn’t coming, they’re at least hard to play against. But that wasn’t the team that showed up Sunday. Luckily, they’ll get another shot at the Kraken at 10 p.m. ET Thursday in Seattle.

On Sunday, though, part of the problem was exhaustion, Tortorella said, so he gave them two days of rest. Another part was structure. So when they returned from their break, the Flyers hit the film room to go over what went wrong and then focused practice on structure. And finally, there was a lack of offensive chemistry leading to lots of almost offense, so Tortorella switched up the lines once again.

“A number of guys were stale offensively,” Tortorella said. “It’s not just because of the line combinations. There’s a number of things. Structure’s one of them. So we’re going to change up the lines and see where it goes.”

Even if the rest and attempt to build chemistry isn’t enough to get the team up to the Kraken’s speed, Owen Tippett said they’re focusing on keeping it simple and beating them this time with structure. He was encouraged that even though the chances weren’t going in, the team still was creating offense. To him, it feels like it’s “only a matter of time” before the puck starts bouncing their way again.

The good thing about playing the Kraken for a second straight time is it will give the team a good measuring stick of how well they respond to one of their worst performances in a long time.

“Perfect opportunity to play the same team and right your wrong,” Laughton said.

Although the Flyers allowed four goals, and many of them were on plays where they left their goalie out to dry, one of the positives they took from the last game was how few shots they let through, considering how much time they spent defending.

Laughton complimented the way his teammates blocked shots and clogged up the middle. And while Tortorella changed up the forward lines looking for a spark, he kept the defensive pairings the same. However, the defense isn’t excusing itself from Laughton’s list of players who need to be better.

“We just need to be better structurally,” Nick Seeler said. “We just need to cut the East-West plays out. That’s kind of what killed us. And turnovers led to some odd-man rushes.”

Carter Hart will start in goal for the Flyers game against the Kraken with puck drop at 10 p.m. ET. Samuel Ersson will back Hart up. ... Since Tortorella spent last season working for ESPN, he hasn’t yet coached in Climate Pledge Arena. He was impressed by the visiting locker rooms. It also will be Hart and Seeler’s first times playing in Climate Pledge Arena. Seeler said it’s always nice to experience a new arena and a new city. “I hear they have quite the pregame stuff,” Seeler said.