‘This is where we want to be’ — Flyers stay positive after shootout loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Flyers dropped a 2-1 shootout decision to the Blues on Monday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
After Jake Neighbours scored in the skills competition for St. Louis, Morgan Frost answered on the Flyers’ third attempt.
But Pavel Buchnevich won it for the Blues on their fourth attempt.
The Flyers nearly won the game in OT. Cam York had a shot go off of Jordan Binnington and then the crossbar with just over a minute remaining in the bonus session. Travis Sanheim was also denied with 12 seconds left.
Sean Couturier, Tyson Foerster and Owen Tippett came up empty in the shootout.
The Flyers (32-23-8) have lost six of their last nine games (3-4-2).
They’re still in third place of the Metropolitan Division, a spot they’ve held since the end of January. The Islanders, six points back and with three games in hand, are the closest on the Flyers’ tail.
John Tortorella’s club entered Monday with a 71.3 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to Hockey-Reference.com’s probabilities report.
The Flyers’ schedule gets much harder the rest of March, with nine games against teams in postseason position.
“This is where we want to be, this is the stretch that we want to be in where we’ve got a chance to make the playoffs,” Sanheim said. “We’re going to take it day by day, game by game and continue to get better.”
With the shootout loss, the Flyers dropped to 8-8 after regulation and 12-7-8 in games decided by one goal.
On Monday night, they were unable to build on a one-goal lead and it came back to bite them.
“We’ll take the point and move on,” Sanheim said. “It’s unfortunate we couldn’t get the second one there. Had some looks, had some chances late and in overtime, but just couldn’t find a way.”
Travis Konecny missed his sixth straight game because of an upper-body injury. The Flyers’ leading scorer has been considered day to day. According to PHLY Sports’ Charlie O’Connor, Konecny was a non-contact participant in Monday’s morning skate.
The club has gone 2-3-1 without Konecny.
“We have found a way to get points,” Tortorella said. “You’ve got to remember we’re missing a pretty important guy. I think the guys have rallied.”
The Flyers split their two-game regular-season series with the Blues (32-26-3).
• Samuel Ersson was very good, making 24 saves on 25 shots.
He proved human in the shootout, an area in which he has delivered this season (4-2 record).
The…