John Tortorella’s club suffers third straight defeat – NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Flyers followed up their three-game winning streak with a three-game losing streak.

They lost 4-2 to the Utah Hockey Club on Sunday night at the Wells Fargo Center.

Less than six minutes before the end of the third period, John Tortorella’s team had the chance to equalize on the power play. But the Flyers narrowly allowed a shorthanded goal. Morgan Frost plated the puck in the defensive zone, leading to a breakaway marker for Kevin Stenlund.

Tortorella defended Frost after the game.

“He won’t do that again for the rest of his career,” said the head coach.

The Flyers never led Sunday night and have now lost more than two games in a row for the first time since October, when they snapped a six-game losing streak.

Joel Farabee and Owen Tippett scored goals for the Flyers (12-12-4), who are 1-4-0 in back-to-back sets in the second game. They fell to the Bruins 4-3 in overtime at TD Garden on Saturday afternoon.

This was the first-ever matchup between the Flyers and Utah (12-11-4). The teams will meet again in February when the Flyers visit the Delta Center.

• The Flyers saw the return of their No. 1 goalie.

Samuel Ersson was back in net, making 21 saves on 25 shots, after missing the last 11 games with a lower-body injury.

“I thought Sam played well,” Tortorella said. “Looked confident.”

The 25-year-old made an early stop on a semi-odd-man rush for Utah. That had to be good to shake off the rust from 26 days of no game action.

“I felt maybe a little rusty,” Ersson said. “I think I played pretty well in the first game and in the second I feel like I need to come up with one of those saves there. For me it’s one of those games where I feel like it’s not a goal, like, “I have to have it.” But I have to come up with an extra save so we have a chance of winning have.”

Ersson couldn’t get any breaks in the second period as Utah scored three goals. The first was a hard bounce off Rasmus Ristolainen’s skate. The Flyers also made a change as Utah moved up the ice.

After Farabee answered 19 seconds later to make it 1-1, the Flyers fell behind again 2:22 minutes later when Juuso Valimaki converted a goal past Ersson. Sean Couturier was in front and fighting with Valimaki.

Tippett then pulled against the Flyers again almost four minutes later, but Utah countered again. This time it came to the power play. It was the seventh goal the Flyers had conceded in a shootout in their last four games. One of these seven was an empty net. Prior to this stretch, the Flyers’ PK had allowed just 10 goals this season.

“I thought our backside looked tired tonight,” Tortorella said. “We converted a lot of penalties. If there’s any wear and tear that comes with taking penalties like we did, it’s the backline. You looked tired tonight.”

Utah goaltender Jaxson Stauber stopped 22 of the Flyers’ 24 shots.

The Flyers lost their third straight game, falling to the Utah Hockey Club 4-2 on Sunday night.

• Two and a half hours before the game, when asked if he thought Travis Konecny ​​would respond well to being benched for Saturday’s overtime, Tortorella said “sure.”

The head coach did not speak to his team about the penalties in the third period of the last two games. The Flyers’ poor situational play resulted in them giving up leads and losing both games.

Konecny ​​​​had an assist on Farabee’s goal on Sunday night. The Flyers didn’t commit any penalties until the final 17 seconds of the third period, but couldn’t mount a comeback.

• Matvei Michkov is on a four-game point streak in which he scored three goals and five assists. The award-winning rookie provided a second assist on Tippett’s goal.

He leads all NHL rookies with 25 points (11 goals, 14 assists) in 26 games.