PHILADELPHIA — While John Tortorella talked earlier Thursday about how rookie Matvei Michkov seemed to need a break from an exhausting first NHL season, Tortorella could have expanded that sentiment to the rest of his Flyers.
By allowing the front-running Washington Capitals to score twice in the third period and post a 4-3 comeback victory at Wells Fargo Center Thursday, the Flyers racked up their fifth straight loss and seventh over their past eight games.
It’s still early enough in the season, perhaps, for spring miracles. But this Flyers season is starting to emulate last year’s late meltdown, except to be fair, the Flyers haven’t been much of a playoff challenger anyway.
What they are now is the last place team in the Metropolitan Division. At 23-26-7, the Flyers have 53 points, tied with the Penguins but having played one more game than Pittsburgh, which visits WFC Saturday.
Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim helped get them on the board first with a terrific outlet pass from deep in his defensive zone. It went off the sideboards perfectly to the cherry-picking Michkov, who went in all alone on goalie Charlie Lindgren, beating him past his right-side glove hand at 17:31 of the first.
It ended a goal-less streak of eight games and point-less streak of seven games for the exciting rookie. It ended a run of three straight shutouts suffered by the Flyers. And Michkov wouldn’t be done.
First, though, the Capitals got back in the game, via their old hand Alex Ovechkin. The 39-year-old far-from-rookie sniper did just that with 53 seconds left in the first, tying it at 1-1. It’s the 879th goal of his carer, 16 shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record.
The Capitals, who came in atop the Metropolitan Division, started to exert control when Connor McMichael scored off a tip-in 4:17 into the second.
But the momentum would shift, and Tyson Foerster helped it do that by tipping home a slapshot by defenseman Emil Andrae for 2-2 at the 7:23 mark.
That’s when Michkov, who didn’t look so tired after all, cranked the energy back up. He started a pretty series of Flyers passes as they cruised into the Capitals end, and Michkov finished it with a deflection past Lindgren at 11:19 of the second for a 3-2 lead.
Checking center Lars Eller got the Caps back even at 3-all 6:23 into the third, left alone at the top of a circle to easily beat Ivan Fedotov with a wrist shot.
In similar fashion, defenseman Jakob Chychrun was allowed to pinch into the same left circle in the attack zone, and slam home a pass from John Carlson to give the Caps a 4-3 lead with 7:55 left in regulation. It stayed that way to the end, when Foerster had a chance to tie just prior to the final buzzer, but the shot was kicked away.
Source: Berkshire mont