Flyers give up lead with 0.3 seconds left, suffer gut-wrenching loss in OT originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Flyers allowed a game-tying goal with 0.3 seconds left in regulation Saturday night before suffering a 5-4 overtime loss to the Hurricanes at the Wells Fargo Center.
Carolina’s last-second comeback spoiled the Flyers’ youth-infused rally.
John Tortorella’s club erased a pair of two-goal deficits and took a 4-3 lead in the third period.
The Hurricanes entered the game 30-1-4 when holding a lead at second intermission. They held a 3-2 edge Saturday heading into the final stanza, but goals from Joel Farabee and Brendan Lemieux put the Flyers ahead.
Martin Necas, however, flushed a rebound with 0.3 ticks left on the clock after Felix Sandstrom made an initial save to nearly seal the game. The equalizer came at 6-on-4 for Carolina as it emptied its net with Scott Laughton in the box because of a holding penalty.
Sebastian Aho punctuated a hat trick with the OT winner just 28 seconds into the bonus session.
“I thought we played really well, I thought we had the game controlled,” Tortorella said. “I don’t know how to evaluate it right now.”
The Flyers (25-32-12) dropped to 1-11 in overtime.
Tortorella’s team is 2-10-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets and hasn’t won consecutive games since Jan. 9-14, when it won three straight.
“We can spit out our record in our back-to-backs. We don’t have a good record period,” Tortorella said before the game. “So I’m not even going to the back-to-backs. We need to get consistent in winning hockey games period.”
Tyson Foerster scored his first career NHL goal on his well-advertised shot and finished with a two-point game.
Noah Cates also found the back of the net.
The Flyers are 1-1-1 on their season-long seven-game homestand. They’ve lost 17 of their last 22 games (5-12-5).
The Flyers were swept by the Hurricanes (45-15-8) in their four-game regular-season series (0-2-2). All four of the Flyers’ losses were by one goal. The Flyers have lost 20 times in games decided by one goal (9-8-12).
Carolina is leading the Metropolitan Division and own the NHL’s second-most points (98), behind only the Bruins (109).
It suffered a tough loss this week when key forward Andrei Svechnikov was forced to have season-ending ACL surgery.
• A day after putting up five goals on the Sabres, who are prone to give ’em up, the Flyers squared off with one of the most structured and sound teams in the league.
But they…