Less than 24 hours after a crushing home defeat, the Flyers carried a lead for most of Sunday’s game against the NHL’s best team.
But they couldn’t hold off mighty Washington.
Defenseman Matt Niskanen scored with 14 minutes, 36 seconds left in regulation to spark the Capitals to a hard-earned 3-2 win at the Verizon Center.
The Flyers blew leads in consecutive 3-2 weekend losses to the Rangers in a shootout, and to the Capitals in regulation.
“It’s disappointing not to come away with points today ... but we’re playing pretty good hockey,” rookie coach Dave Hakstol said after the Flyers’ four-game points streak (3-0-1) ended. “This is a tough stretch,”
“We had a chance to have a good weekend overall and we let it slip away,” goalie Steve Mason said.
Niskanen picked up the puck in the neutral zone, skated between Shayne Gostisbehere and Michael Del Zotto in the middle of the ice, and beat Mason from in close to give the Capitals a 3-2 lead.
“It was a good play by him, but for us, the discipline in the neutral zone [wasn’t there],” Del Zotto said. “We try to take the middle of the ice away and move it to the outside, and from start to finish, we weren’t in the correct position — from up front to the back end. And it came back to haunt us.”
So did this: The Flyers were 0 for 5 on the power play, including a five-on-three advantage for 53 seconds in the second period, costing them a chance to extend a 1-0 lead.
Braden Holtby made eight saves on those power plays. He also made key even-strength stops late in the game, denying Wayne Simmonds, Michael Raffl, and Jake Voracek.
“It’s going to happen; you’re going to face hot goaltenders now and then,” said Del Zotto, whose team outshot the hosts, 35-30.
On the winning goal, Gostisbehere was surprised Niskanen went down the middle.
“We were kind of flat-footed,” he said. “We don’t expect a D-man to have that much speed coming at us. I think we could have helped out Mase a little more defensively. We were a little too wide and I thought he was going to kick it out wide.”
Fifty-one seconds into the third period, Flyers defenseman Nick Schultz scored on a point drive past a screened Holtby. It was Schult’z first goal of the season, and it came after a faceoff win by Pierre-Edouard Bellemare against T.J. Oshie, knotting the score at 2-2.
Alex Ovechkin and Dmitry Orlov scored 69 seconds apart late in the second period to erase a 1-0 Flyers lead and key the win.
Misplays by defenseman Radko Gudas, who has struggled in recent games, contributed to both Washington goals.
Ovechkin, with defenseman Evgeny Medvedev draped all over him, managed to deflect home Karl Alzner’s shot from the left boards with 4:04 to go in the second.
With his tally, Ovechkin joined Wayne Gretzky and Mike Gartner as the only players in NHL history to score 30 or more goals in each of their first 11 seasons.
For Gostisbehere, it extended his points streak to eight games — two shy of equalling the team’s rookie record set by Mikael Renberg in 1993-94. It’s the longest streak by an NHL rookie defenseman since Keven Shattenkirk had a nine-game for Colorado in 2010, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.