Flyers give up two goals in 25 seconds and lose to the Wild

In the space of 25 seconds, the Flyers undid the work of their best offensive game since Jan. 29. After going into the third period with a 4-3 lead, they gave up two quick goals to the Minnesota Wild, who left the Wells Fargo Center with a 5-4 victory Thursday night.

Matt Boldy tied it for Minnesota at 12 minutes, 16 seconds of the third period. Twenty-five seconds later, Jonas Brodin scored the go-ahead goal.

“As soon as the adversity struck, we crumbled,” interim coach Mike Yeo said. “And that seems to be a growing trend for us, and we have to fix that.”

The Flyers made up for all the shots they didn’t capitalize on in Tuesday’s shutout by scoring more goals than they have since they scored four against the Los Angeles Kings on Jan. 29.

Scott Laughton kicked it off early with an unassisted goal just under four minutes into the game.

When the Wild tied it with a perfectly placed pass to Ryan Hartman, who deflected it in, the Flyers showed the resilience they’ve been working on in recent games. They kept up their intensity, and the fourth line set up a Patrick Brown goal to take back the lead. It was Brown’s second goal since coming back from injury.

The Flyers were six seconds away from going into the first intermission with a lead when Derick Brassard turned it over, and Frederick Gaudreau turned it into a goal.

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The back-and-forth continued in the second. Travis Konecny, who’d been looking for a goal since Feb. 1, took the lead back early, and then Hartman scored his second to tie it. But after James van Riemsdyk gave the Flyers the lead again with a power-play goal, the Flyers finished the second period ahead despite an unimpressive performance.

The Flyers maintained the lead for 12 more minutes before a turnover into the neutral zone led to Boldy’s goal.

“They have to grab hold of this,” Yeo said. “That’s how we’re gonna do it because if we don’t have complete engagement, complete buy-in to each other and the way that we have to play the game, then we’re not gonna win.”

The Wild improved to 4-10 in Philadelphia.

Yeo was not satisfied with the second line’s play Tuesday. The second line was even more displeased. Both Laughton and Konecny said they had too many “one-and-dones” and needed to go back to how they were playing the games before. Between the two of them, their line had at least one point in the 17 games before Tuesday’s.

Laughton avenged them early when he intercepted a pass and took off down the ice, burning the Wild with his speed and scoring the unassisted goal. Konecny, who acknowledged ahead of the game that he needs to shoot more, took three shots early and scored on the third. Laughton was awarded the assist.

“Especially Laughts, I thought he really responded,” Yeo said. “But that line obviously, you know, I talked about it. We need some of those guys to come grab hold of this. To push us to where we want to get to, they’re going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.”

Offense is the best defense, but the Flyers were playing the wrong type of defense. They spent long minutes in their own end trying to get the puck back from the Wild. As they tried to chase down the puck, the Flyers visibly tired.

Extra time with the puck meant more chances for the Wild. They outshot the Flyers, 38-30, and they were able to recover their own rebounds for more chances. They won battles, and their crisp passing led to a successful game of keep-away.

With so much time spent chasing, the Flyers were then tired once they finally recovered the puck. They stayed in the game because they were able to capitalize on their shots. But their play wasn’t sustainable, and they fell behind in the third after leading through most of the game.

The Flyers have mentioned repeatedly that they feel they need to play a perfect game to win. They were their own toughest opponents Thursday. Three of the Wild’s five goals came on unforced errors by the Flyers.

The Flyers had just six seconds to kill to go into the second with a lead when Brassard passed the puck right to Gaudreau. Gaudreau promptly buried it.

On the Wild’s third goal, the shot came in from the point. Ivan Provorov caught it with his chest and then lost track of it between his feet. Hartman, who he was battling in front of the net, poked it in. In the third period, Provorov turned it over in the neutral zone, which resulted in the Wild’s tying goal.

“Every player that’s here is an NHL player and every player that’s here has the ability to make those plays,” Yeo said. “So it’s alarming regardless of who’s making them, to be honest. ... These are the things we’re showing on video and we’ll continue to show. But it’s got to come from them. That’s what it comes down to right now.”

While those two mistakes led to goals, the Flyers also had numerous errors that they were able to keep out of the net. They had 15 giveaways compared to the Wild’s six. The one area that they cleaned up was their penalty minutes. After spending 10 minutes in the box Tuesday, the Flyers committed one penalty Thursday.

“Our whole team made some mistakes,” Yeo said. “And this is where we’re going to bail each other out, and that’s what good teams do. That team made a lot of mistakes tonight, too. But they kept fighting. They kept pushing for each other. And with each other. And they found a way to win. We didn’t do that.”

The Flyers host the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday at 3 p.m.