There wasn’t much life from the ice to the rafters in the Wells Fargo Center for much of Thursday night.
The result? A 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.
The Flyers have now lost four straight and nine of their past 12.
Sam Ersson returned between the pipes after missing three games with a lower-body injury. Although he made several good stops including a diving glove save on Colin Blackwell at the left post in the second period, he allowed three goals on 22 shots.
The first shot he faced snuck past him just 1 minute and 45 seconds into the first period. The fifth shot he faced at 9:38 also found the back of the net.
Off the rush, Mavrik Bourque made it 1-0 with a tip-in around Ersson on a Matt Dumba centering pass. The Stars broke out two-on-one with Jamie Drysdale breaking up the pass by Dumba intended for Sam Steel, but it bounced right back to Dumba to set up the goal.
Roope Hintz made it 2-0 when he knocked in a rebound atop the crease. Evgenii Dadonov put the shot-pass on goal from the right faceoff circle, and Hintz got positioning on Drysdale for the tap-in.
The Stars kept it up and had so much sustained pressure to start the second period, fans cheered when the Flyers crossed the red line for the first time with more than 5 minutes gone. Not long after, Wyatt Johnston had a snipe from the left circle that beat Ersson’s glove side to make it 3-0.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers had 23 shot attempts in the first period and 13 in the second with 17 shots on goal combined. By comparison, the Stars had 44 shot attempts and 18 shots on goal in the opening 40 minutes. In the second period, the shot attempts were two-to-one in favor of the Stars.
In the third period, the Flyers had a brief spark. Morgan Frost got them on the board when he knocked in a Travis Konecny shot he initially tipped wide and bounced off the end boards back in front. Frost now has eight goals on the season.
Breakaways
Miro Heiskanen scored an empty-netter. … The Flyers had 26 shots on goal. … Matvei Michkov was minus-3 for the game. … Garnet Hathaway had eight hits. … The game was the Flyers annual Ed Snider Legacy Game. … Before the game, Flyers Charities donated $300,000 to the Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education to help upgrade four rinks. … The Flyers went 0-for-2 on the power play and had just three shots on goal.
Up next
The Flyers practice on Friday before welcoming Cutter Gauthier and the Anaheim Ducks to town on Saturday (7 p.m., NBCSP).