After a promising victory over the Dallas Stars, the Philadelphia Flyers reverted back to their losing ways with a 3-2 loss on Saturday to the New Jersey Devils.
The Flyers will look to get back on track with a home game Monday against the Minnesota Wild.
Philadelphia went through a maddening eight-game losing streak — with two of those losses coming in overtime — before rallying for a 2-1 win over the visiting Stars on Thursday. But they couldn’t maintain any positive momentum and fell on the road to the Devils.
That’s nine losses in their last 10 games.
Rookie goaltender Carter Hart stopped 23 shots and James van Riemsdyk scored a goal in his second straight game, but it wasn’t enough.
“Certainly it’s been frustrating,” van Riemsdyk told reporters. “We shoot ourselves in the foot a lot and it makes you have to chase the game a lot of the time. It’s tough. We did do some good things, but ultimately we made some key mistakes and they ended up in the back of our net.”
Hart, 20, has started nine games and owns a 3-5-1 record.
The Flyers have suited up and played seven goaltenders this season, tying a National Hockey League record. No team has ever used eight.
Philadelphia has lost games in a multitude of ways this season.
“I think a lot of guys are playing the right way, but it doesn’t matter how many guys are playing the right way if you’ve got two costly mistakes. You can’t outscore those two mistakes,” Flyers interim head coach Scott Gordon told reporters. “It’s as simple as that.”
The Wild struggled mightily in a 5-2 home loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday. Luke Kunin and Nino Niederreiter each scored for the Wild. Niederreiter notched his first goal in 13 games, which was a bright spot. Kunin’s goal was his first of the season and also the first in 27 games since Oct. 31, 2017.
The Wild weren’t able to generate much offense, especially in the second period with two shots on goal. Minnesota, which finished with a miniscule 19 shots, managed zero shots in the third period of its 3-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.
Still, the Wild will enter this road game at Philadelphia with a 22-19-3 record. In 29 of these 44 games, the opponent has scored first.
“Effort. Compete. I don’t know what it was,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters. “I don’t know if they were still tired from this road trip or what have you. I’m really disappointed with tonight’s effort.”
Minnesota’s Zach Parise echoed similar thoughts.
“If you don’t show up it doesn’t matter who you’re playing in this league you’re gonna lose,” Parise told reporters. “That was a perfect example of that tonight.”
The Wild lost in front of a sellout crowd to the Red Wings, who had lost three consecutive games and nine of 10.
But the Wild were unable to put pressure in the offensive zone or defend in their own zone.
Boudreau, in his third season with the club, described the loss this way: “The worst game that we’ve played since I’ve been here as coach.”
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