They were angry.
Angry at the officials on the ice for not ruling that Nick Schultz was pushed into the goalie.
Angry at the video replay war room in Toronto for not taking a stand.
Angry that the overturned goal was the difference in a 3-2 Flyers overtime loss on Tuesday night to the rather feisty Calgary Flames at the Wells Fargo Center (see Instant Replay).
Yet the Flyers real anger should be directed at themselves — no one else.
Had they played the opening 20 minutes like they played the final 20 minutes of regulation, they would won.
So instead of picking up two points on Florida and two on idle Boston in the wild card, the Flyers picked up just one point and are five behind the Bruins.
Which means the best the Flyers can hope for when they meet the Bruins on Saturday afternoon in Boston is to be within three points of them — not two with a chance to tie.
“I’d say the first 10, 12 minutes we lacked that energy and execution we needed,” Flyers coach Craig Berube said. “After that we played a pretty solid hockey game. … The start of the game wasn’t good enough. It needs to be better.”
All that energy and enthusiasm the Flyers brought last Saturday night against the New York Rangers was missing against the Flames.
The Flyers were lethargic and defensively absent in front of their own net as Calgary had an 11-4 shot advantage at one point in the opening period and scored early when Jiri Hudler stripped Michael Del Zotto leading the rush — not supporting it — for a goal on Steve Mason.
Things amped up in the second period, but Flames goalie Karri Ramo held his ice with a 2-0 lead before the Flyers turned it on in the third period with a goal from Sean Couturier, a tying goal from Mark Streit and that Schultz denied goal in-between.
Schultz charged the net and made contact with Ramo, yet was cross-checked into Ramo by South Jersey’s Johnny Gaudreau as the puck crossed the line.
The call on the ice was a goal, but quickly became no-goal when the four officials huddled.
It went to review, but the league said it wasn’t reviewable because it was no-goal. Later, the war room revised its statement in an e-mail, “After the original goal call, the four on-ice officials huddled to make the final decision.”
Schultz's goal should have tied the game and Streit’s should have won it in regulation.
Thing is, that kind of effort by Schultz — which incensed the Flyers to raise their game another level, should have been there from the get-go.
The Flyers keep saying they are in a playoff race and keep having lethargic starts to games one night, great starts the next, off period here, great period there.
That’s not how a team wins a wild-card berth.
“That’s obviously the difference and we know that,” said White about the Flyers’ indifferent start. “You got to play 60 minutes every night. We played well in the third period and got ourselves a point but we might not have been in that situation if we had played the entire [first] 40 [minutes].”
Calgary did an excellent job of frustrating the Flyers with stick blocks all night — 33 blocked shots.
The Flyers rallied with 15 shots and two goals in the third period.
“You keep getting pinned against the wall and you either fight or you are gonna go away and I thought the guys reacted well,” White said of the late comeback that fell short.
“We weren’t going to be denied to get that second goal. Too bad we didn’t get another one.”
Hudler scored the game-winner at 1:23 in OT off a shot that got trapped in Del Zotto’s skates off the rush and nicked off Mason’s pads.
“We definitely need to be better,” Mason said. “If you look at our game as a whole, it was up and down. Second period was good for the most part. Third period was great. We need to have that energy a full 60 minutes.
“It’s great the guys found the energy to play the way they did in the third period because we’re a tough team to play against when everyone is going like that. That’s the type of effort we need. But at the end of the day, we should have been able to close it out.”
Again, it’s another point the Flyers left on the ice with just 18 games left to make postseason.