Without defensemen Chris Pronger and Braydon Coburn as well as scoring threat Jaromir Jagr the Flyers struggled mightily against one of the worst teams in the NHL.
Alexei Ponikarovsky had two goals and an assist and Chad LaRose had a goal and two assists and the Carolina Hurricanes earned a 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday night.
Carolina entered the game with just 19 points on the season – good for dead last in the Southeast Division.
Jeff Skinner also scored and Cam Ward made 30 saves for Carolina, which got its first victory in Philadelphia since Nov. 28, 2008. Jussi Jokinen added two assists for the Hurricanes.
James van Riemsdyk and Matt Read scored for Philadelphia, which has lost two in a row.
Down 2-0 after the first period, JVR scored his eighth goal of the season early in the second period to get Flyers on the board. However, a couple of minutes later, LaRose got his sixth to restore Carolina's two-goal edge.
At 12:24 of the second, the Flyers once again got within a goal when Read scored his ninth of the season that pulled the Flyers within 3-2. Read has a goal in five straight games.
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But Ponikarovsky managed to find the puck through a group of players in front of the net and lifted it over Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov late in the second to make it 4-2.
Pronger missed the game with a virus while Coburn was out with what sources told CSNPhilly.com's Tim Panaccio is a kidney injury.
Technically, Coburn’s injury is mid-body. Two sources told CSNPhilly.com that Coburn took a shot to his kidneys but doesn’t have any internal organ damage.
“We're hoping [Coburn] can be back within a game or two,” general manager Paul Holmgren said.
“Chris is suffering from a little bit of a virus. Once we get some tests run on him we'll have a little better idea but right now we're going to list him as day-to-day, too.”
Coburn was injured at Winnipeg. He took the morning skate, but he is not allowed to have contact. Pronger did not skate.
Jagr remained out with a lower-body ailment.
The Flyers get back to the ice Wednesday night against the Eastern Conference-worst Islanders.
