ST. LOUIS – For a few fleeting moments in the third period, the hockey gods appeared to be smiling on the Flyers on Wednesday night at Scottrade Center.
Just 28 seconds after an apparent goal by Brayden Schenn was disallowed, Schenn scored a beaut from Shayne Gostisbehere, a quick snap shot off the rush from the high slot to give the Flyers a one-goal lead.
Unfortunately for the Flyers, 15:47 remained in the game, and almost as quickly as the hockey gods gave Schenn the go-ahead goal, the team crumbled.
The Flyers surrendered four goals in succession, including the first two in a span of 1:20 en route to a 6-3 defeat (see Instant Replay).
"We put ourselves in a good situation [early] in the third, but kind of blew it there," Gostisbehere said. "We could have done a lot more than that in the third."
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The result has been all too familiar in the past couple of weeks. Since streaking to 10 wins in a row, the Flyers are a measly 1-3-1 in the past five games.
The loss dropped the Flyers' record to 20-13-4 for 44 points, in the second wild card of the Eastern Conference. They dropped to 8-8-1 on the road, against one of the league's better home teams.
Granted, the game was an improvement over the Flyers' loss at New Jersey six days ago, before the Christmas break. But not nearly good enough against a team that also had been off for six games.
"We're not using the layoff excuse; they were also off," said Schenn, noting that the Blues "play a very structured game and play together."
After taking the lead on his goal early in the third, the Flyers "slacked off and sat back," Schenn said. "Then, we were chasing the game."
First, David Perron scored from Colton Parayko to tie the score 3-3 at 5:53, as the Blues got traffic in front of Flyers goalie Steve Mason. Then, Scottie Upshall redirected Joel Edmundson's point shot for what proved to be the winning goal at 7:13.
"Obviously we have to do a better job, with them getting back-to-back goals like that," Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. "We have to do a better job of getting into those guys."
With 4:59 to play, the Blues put the game away with Robby Fabbri's second goal of the night, for a 5-3 lead. Fabbri finished his first hat trick with an empty-net goal.
Fabbri's first goal in the opening period was a slapper on a power play after Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo made like Bobby Orr with an end-to-end rush up the gut, stick-handling between the four Flyers penalty killers. Parayko gathered the rebound of Pietrangelo's shot and fed Fabbri for a slapper from the high slot.
The Blues had – repeat after me – traffic in front of the net on that goal. Likewise, on Kevin Shattenkirk's earlier PP goal from Alex Stein. Lump the three non-empty-netters in the third with that.
Hakstol exonerated Mason on all five goals, citing the aforementioned traffic in front. However, he didn't speak kindly of the penalties that created those power plays – Claude Giroux for holding in the defensive zone and Roman Lyubimov for hooking in the offensive zone.
Fittingly, with the penalties in each zone, the Flyers "have to be better in all areas of the ice," Schenn said.
The Shattenkirk and Fabbri goals gave the Blues a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period, after the Flyers had scored a pretty goal to light the lamp for the first time of the night – on their first shot, at 3:25.
Schenn dipsy-doodled on the right wing, fed Travis Konecny in the left slot, then raised his arms after Konecny touched the puck to Wayne Simmonds at the right crease for the easy tap-in.
Simmons agreed that he had the easy part on that goal, adding, "It's nice to be on the receiving end of those."
Nick Cousins scored the Flyers' middle goal, tying that score at 2-2 at 4:32 of the second period. Blues coach Ken Hitchcock challenged the goal on a potential offside. However, replay confirmed that the puck was at least a foot into the attacking zone on Sean Couturier's rush, and Cousins was still dragging his skate across the blue line, clearly onside. Cousins ultimately was credited with a goal, as he deflected Lyubimov's wrister from the left point, and the puck bounced in off Blues defender Carl Gunnarson.
The Flyers got that call and that bounce, and the hockey gods appeared to come through for a 3-2 lead with Schenn's marker after referee Joe McIsaac prematurely blew the play dead 28 seconds earlier on his apparent goal-mouth scramble tally.
But success, so easy for the Flyers in the 10-game winning streak, proved to be elusive.
"When you take a one-goal lead on the road in the third period, you'd like to find a way to be a little harder to play against," Hakstol said.
