The Flyers got the all-important first goal that dictated results of late, and did hold the lead after the first period. But something about the first period didn't add up. The Flyers led, but were massively out-played by the East-leading Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Lightning turned things on in the second and scored two quick goals that proved to be the difference in a 3-1 Flyers loss on Tuesday night.
"Sloppy at times and we didn’t have the urgency we needed," Nick Schultz said. "We had an opportunity to win this game on a back-to-back nights where we’ve been sitting a couple of days. We needed more energy, a little more desperation in our game and we didn’t have it at times."
The stars seemed to align for the Flyers on this night: rookie goalie in his NHL debut for Tampa, two injured scorers, a team playing for the third time in four nights. But the Lightning hardly looked tired as they controlled the pace.
"We should have taken advantage of a tired team," Steve Mason said. "I don’t think we did a great job with that. Overall, there wasn’t a whole lot of scoring chances both sides. There was a lot of good defensive play on our part. At the end of the day, we missed an opportunity."
The Flyers were only leading after the first thanks to Mason, Schultz and the posts. Tampa hits two posts early, Schultz made a kick save along the goal line and Mason robbed a chance on the power play.
It took a power-play chance for the Flyers to even score. Other than that, they didn't generate much offensively, not the mindset needed for facing an untested goalie.
"We had zone time, they blocked shots on us, we missed the net a few times," head coach Craig Berube said. "We didn’t get enough in there. We got checked a lot of times, we didn’t get in their end often enough. We didn’t have any rush chances. They did a good job against us."
So gone was the Flyers five-game point streak, at the hands of a very capable team sitting atop the Eastern Conference. But the Flyers felt an opportunity was wasted. That's a good frame of mind to take for a team that was started to rise up again.
"We had one good chance," Mark Streit said. "We had trouble breaking the puck out and getting into their end. It broke our rhythm. We have to be better than that."
The Flyers couldn't play any better than they did to open the homestand. They get one more chance to cap it off properly on Thursday against the Panthers.
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
