Flyers’ power outage continues in Game 3 loss to Hurricanes

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Flyers' struggles against the Carolina Hurricanes during the Eastern Conference Second Round could be encapsulated in a span of 2:45 late in the second period.

During that time, the Flyers alternated between having one and two extra skaters on the ice. But their man-advantage provided no advantage, and that could go a long way toward their season coming to an end.

The Flyers had three shots on goal during their extended power-play time, went scoreless on five power plays in total, and allowed a short-handed goal that held up as the game-winner in a 4-1 loss in Game 3 at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday.

They also allowed two power-play goals and now trail the best-of-7 series 3-0 with Game 4 here Saturday (6 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

"You can win games with the power play, and you can lose them with the penalty kill," Flyers captain Sean Couturier said. "And tonight, that's kind of what happened."

The power play has been a season-long struggle. They were last in the NHL during the regular season (15.7 percent), and that's carried into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Flyers entered Thursday 1-for-11 (9.1 percent) in the first two games of the series against the Hurricanes and 3-for-28 (10.7 percent) during the postseason.

But in Game 3 their issues were laid bare, starting with Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall getting called for boarding Travis Sanheim at 15:48 of the second period.

Couturier won the ensuing face-off back to Jamie Drysdale at the left point, but Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook lunged toward Drysdale and knocked the puck off his stick. That let Jordan Staal skate out on a 2-on-1 that Jalen Chatfield finished to put the Hurricanes ahead 2-1 at 15:59.

"I just made a bad play, and there's honestly not much more to it," Drysdale said. "It was a puck that came out. I felt like I could get to it, and I saw that they had guys coming out and I tried to make the play to split it. Kind of one of those what-ifs. If it got through it was great, but time and place. I've just got to put that puck back in."

The Flyers still were on the power play and got a break moments later when the Hurricanes bench was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after coach Rod Brind'Amour argued with the officials following minor penalties called on Drysdale for holding and Carolina forward Seth Jarvis for high-sticking at 16:33.

That gave the Flyers a 5-on-3 advantage for 1:15.

"Obviously, it was a big moment of the game," forward Christian Dvorak said. "Would have been nice to create a little bit more and worst case get some momentum."

The Flyers won the opening face-off, but the Hurricanes quickly cleared it, and Philadelphia finished the two-man advantage with just one shot on goal.

"Right off the bat we take a shot, we have three guys behind the guy who shot the puck," Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said. "We were just too antsy. And then they have two up and one back, and you got to go low with the play. We've got to make a low play. So, there's a couple of things that we just ... when the pressure hits, the reads were not there."

They still weren't there when the 5-on-3 ended. The Flyers had another 45 seconds of power-play time but had just two shots on goal.

"Could have came up big for us," Sanheim said. "Could have used one on the power play and then to boot, to give one up short-handed, definitely hurt us."

It's hurt them more than just in this game.

"We're trying," Tocchet said. "There's reads and plays you have to make to be on a power play. We've got some guys that are playing power play that probably wouldn't play a lot of minutes on the power play. And we're trying to get these guys to understand certain things. But that's on us. It's on me to try to figure it out."

It's something the coaches and players have failed to figure out to this point. And if they aren't able to figure it out in Game 4, they might have a long offseason to work on it.