TORONTO — It could have turned out so much better for the Flyers but the outcome could not have been much worse.
They took a 3-2 lead into the third period Friday, then allowed four answered goals and the Toronto Maple Leafs drubbed them, 6-3 (see Instant Replay).
That’s the problem. The NHL insists that the teams play a third period.
And when it was over, the Flyers were left biting off terse sentences.
"We turned a pretty good two-period effort into a poor outcome,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “We’ve got to finish and we didn’t. We had two pretty solid road periods, we didn’t finish, bottom line.”
Wayne Simmonds scored twice and Travis Konecny added the other for the Flyers, who are 6-7-2 and have allowed 57 goals. They know they must be better than that.
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“We talk about it a lot,” Simmonds said. “We have to be better, plain and simple. We’re up 3-2 and we gave up four unanswered goals.”
Steve Mason, starting his second straight game in the Flyers' goal, did not face a bunch of shots — 23 in all — but in that third period he was not getting much help. This was a team effort defensively. Plenty of blame to go around.
“We didn’t give Mase a whole lot of easy saves,” Hakstol said. “Especially when you look at the third period with some second and third opportunities. To be blunt and honest, we gave up four goals in the third period, so everybody has to be a little bit better.”
Mason dropped to 2-5-2 with a 3.56 goals-against average and .874 save percentage.
“The last [goal] I wasn’t happy with,” Mason said. “Realistically, everything is stoppable. The third period wasn’t good. We had an opportunity to win a hockey game and we let it get away.”
“We’ve got to finish, it’s 60 minutes,” Hakstol said. “Now we’ve got to turn the page really quick where we’ve got a back-to-back, back at home (against the Minnesota Wild), clear the mind and make sure that we come back very determined [Saturday] night and play the full 60 minutes.”
There had been a feeling around the team that it had cleaned up its defensive play. In the third period, however, the evidence did not support that theory.
“If you look at tonight, the consistency of it has to get better,” Hakstol said. “We gave up a little bit of easy ice on the middle of the rink on the third goal. Plus, we got beat down on our own net. The fourth one is a turnover at the far blue line that comes back. We’ve got to be tougher, stronger, harder in those areas.”
Hakstol said he has seen improvement defensively.
“We’ve been pretty good,” he said. “We got sloppy taking care of the puck two games ago. It wasn’t coverage issues, it was taking care of the puck. We weren’t very good around our blue paint tonight.”
Simmonds scored a shorthanded goal and a power-play goal.
Konecny had the even-strength goal 4:25 into the first period of a wild start to the game that saw the Flyers take a 2-1 lead before some people in the Air Canada Centre were in their seats.
The Flyers still led after two periods and had a chance to clamp down on a victory.
“We talked about it in the room,” Konecny said. “That’s one of the things we wanted to key in on. I think we kind of died there for a couple of minutes and, when that happens, the other team capitalizes on your mistakes. We have to tighten that up. We played a good 40 minutes, but you can’t win a game in the NHL in 40 minutes.”
It happened quickly.
Toronto tied the score when Martin Marincin wired a shot from the point for his first goal of the season. Zach Hyman gave Toronto the lead with his first goal of the season when the Flyers failed to get the puck out of their zone and gave up too many chances.
Leo Komarov added the indignity of a shorthanded goal with his first of the season — a recurring theme — and Mitch Marner finished off what turned into a nice night for the Maple Leafs with his fifth of the season in a third period that helped them forget a 7-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Flyers have lost three games in a row, two of them in regulation. They have to get rid of Friday’s loss in hurry.