After suffering through a 10-game losing streak (0-8-2) as well as a franchise-worst 13-game skid (0-10-3), the Philadelphia Flyers will aim to start trending in the opposite direction.
The host Flyers can extend their winning streak to a modest two games if they can defeat the visiting Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.
Philadelphia snapped the maddening 13-game losing streak with a 4-3 overtime win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.
Cam Atkinson collected two goals and an assist, and Scott Laughton scored in overtime for the Flyers, who were rewarded and relieved at the same time.
“We still have a lot of work to do, in my opinion,” Atkinson said. “But there obviously is nothing better than winning. A win is a win. And it’s been a long time coming. We can feel good about ourselves for a little bit, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
Goaltender Carter Hart made 37 saves and did just enough to help propel the Flyers to a much-needed win. The task now is to win another one.
“We played a lot better hockey for 60 minutes than the previous games,” Hart said. “And I think that’s why we won tonight. I think it was a solid game for us.”
The Flyers continue to struggle with a litany of injuries, most notably to Sean Couturier, Ryan Ellis and Kevin Hayes. All they can do is keep competing with the players who are available, including a number of young ones such as Morgan Frost and Cam York.
“I hate losing,” Atkinson said. “We all hate losing.”
The Jets snapped a six-game losing streak (0-4-2) after posting a 4-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday.
“It’s important to go through adversity and we have and still are,” Pierre-Luc Dubois said. “We have a lot of injuries, COVID, but every team goes through rough patches and every team has injuries and nobody feels bad for you at the end of the day. For us, the important part is obviously winning because that’s what gets you in the playoffs, but it’s improving and getting better and better throughout the year.”
During their recent skid, the Jets were committing uncharacteristic turnovers in their own zone, allowing some soft goals and simply playing inconsistent hockey on both ends.
But there’s still plenty of time to make a run before the postseason.
“I would say that this team has dealt with the most adversity of any team I’ve played on in 14 years,” captain Blake Wheeler said. “So, I would actually completely say the opposite about this group. Yeah, wins and losses aren’t going our way right now, but we’ve dealt with a lot. So, we can go through a list, and those would be labeled excuses, and I’m not in a real big hurry to start using excuses. But fragile is not a word I would use to describe this group. We’ve had to deal with a lot this year.”
The Jets opened the season with a 9-3-3 mark. They know this team can string together wins.
“We’ve got to lean on each other, we’ve got to stick together and keep fighting for that,” Mark Scheifele said.
–Field Level Media
