EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Already, it was the biggest game of the season. That it was outdoors, in front of more than 70,000 fans, amid a Jonas Brothers concert pregame and at the second intermission, with a faux park featuring benches, shrubs and dog walkers, and Gritty tossing the pigskin with the New Jersey Devils’ mascot a few yards away from the playing surface only heightened the atmosphere.
The Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Devils 6-3 on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium. It’s entirely possible that the final playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division, or even the Eastern Conference, will come down to Philadelphia and New Jersey. The win brings the Devils, who have two games in hand, within 5 points of the third-place Flyers.
It was a missed opportunity. Make no mistake, the Flyers organization, from the top down, desperately wants to qualify for the playoffs now that it has put itself in such a prime position with less than two months to go. A regulation win would have given the Flyers a 9-point cushion on not just the Devils but all the other teams in the division that probably are eyeing them as the most likely team to leapfrog.
“Obviously, we knew it’s an important game in a lot of aspects,” said goalie Samuel Ersson, who allowed five goals on 38 shots. “Especially in the standings; we know they’re chasing us.”
Coach John Tortorella downplayed the loss.
“There’s (26) games left,” he said. “We’re not going to get into counting points, 4-point games and all that. We don’t operate that way. We just get ready for our next game.”
But one day earlier, after the Flyers held a practice at the stadium, Tortorella was singing a different tune when he called it “such an important game. I haven’t followed where (teams) were in the standings in the other games, but this one is right in front of us here. … You can see where the East is.”
The Flyers didn’t exactly cave under the bright lights. Yes, they got behind 2-0 in the first period, but Owen Tippett got them on the board about eight minutes into the second period. At that point, they started coming in waves at the Devils and looked primed to get the equalizer.
Keep firing, @TippettOwen. #StadiumSeries | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/9tHeC6p6MX
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) February 18, 2024
But Travis Konecny, who was caught too far up the ice on Nico Hischier’s breakaway goal just half a minute into the game, was goaded into a slashing penalty by Brendan Smith, who had knocked over the Flyers’ leading scorer moments earlier. That nullified a Flyers power play, and although the Devils didn’t score while Konecny was in the box, they added two more goals later in the middle frame to wrest back control.
The Flyers kept fighting — Tippett’s second goal at 18:23 of the second made it 4-2 before the intermission — but then Travis Sanheim turned the puck over less than three minutes into the third period, eventually resulting in another Hischier tally.
✌️ for Tipp. #StadiumSeries | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/lZxWBSAFA9
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) February 18, 2024
It was just too many self-inflicted wounds, including six minor penalties, only one of which was coincidental.
“We had stretches where we had some good minutes, and then you go and take a few penalties — it gets you out of that a little bit,” Sanheim said. “Your momentum is killed a little bit. It affected us. Would have liked to stay out of the box a little bit more.”
Konecny said that “obviously, yep” he would have liked to have not taken that slashing minor on Smith, a play that could very well earn him a fine from the league.
But Tortorella wasn’t overly critical of the play or the player. After all, Konecny earned the primary assist on both of Tippett’s goals.
“That’s TK,” Tortorella said of the newly minted alternate captain. “As I’ve said to you guys before, I’m not getting in the way of his emotion. We have to figure out how to help him in that situation. But the whole sequence there when there were a lot of penalties by both teams, we had them. We were checking forward, we were getting up with chances. We needed one more. We just kind of lost ourselves at the end of the (second) period.”
Ersson was starting in net for the fifth time in six games after the All-Star break. There might not be a single player on the roster who will be under a greater spotlight for the remainder of the season than the 24-year-old rookie goalie.
If there was one goal in particular that he probably would have liked back, it was a big rebound on the Devils’ second goal, by Tyler Toffoli.
“Anytime you lose, and especially let in five goals, you want to have them back,” Ersson said. “In a game like this, I feel like I could have stepped up a little bit more and played a bit better for the team.”
Still, Ersson has the confidence of his teammates because of his mental makeup. He had his struggles going into the All-Star break, when he was suddenly thrust into the No. 1 job due to Carter Hart’s departure. But in four games coming out of the break, he was 3-0-1 with a 2.24 goals-against average and .911 save percentage headed into Saturday’s game.
“With Ers, he’s just a gamer,” Konecny said Friday. “That’s what we love about him. We have all the confidence in him when he’s in net. And he’s an awesome guy, so to see him step into a role and be successful, we’re all rooting for him. We’re not shocked because he puts in the work, he does everything he’s supposed to do.”
Ersson put things into perspective after the loss in the capacious New York Jets locker room, which the Flyers had been using for the past 48 hours. After all, they are 4-1-1 in their last six games since the season resumed.
“After the break, we’ve really stepped up,” he said. “Before this game, we had 9 out of 10 points. We lose a game today, and that’s kind of what it is: It’s a loss. We know it’s going to happen. We have to deal with it, move on and keep building what we’ve been building up here after the break.”
Tortorella indicated he’s looking forward to the team having just one game over the next six days, Wednesday against the Chicago Blackhawks. It gives the Flyers a couple of days to put all the pomp and circumstance of this kind of event behind them while preparing for games that will be equally important over the final eight weeks.
His message was that while Saturday’s game was unique, that’s all it was. Just another game.
“You’ve got to be really careful,” Tortorella said. “Don’t make it into more of a thing than it is, than losing the game.”
That’s true enough now. We’ll see if it’s still true at the end of the regular season.
(Photo of Samuel Ersson reacting after allowing a goal to Nico Hischier: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
