By Harry Allison
The Flyers took a big step back last night in losing to the Canadiens.
They looked uninspired and basically mailed in their performance.
Here’s what they said in their defense:
“I think it’s natural when you play a top team in the league and have an emotional win, as much as you try to fight it, it’s going to be a little bit of a letdown” in the next game, defenseman Matt Niskanen said. “I think we were fighting that tonight. You certainly don’t want it to happen, and we have to find a way to get over that the next time it happens.”
“Sometimes after an emotional win, it’s tough to get up [for a game] the next day, but there’s no excuses,” captain Claude Giroux said. “We didn’t play our game; we didn’t play well. That’s two points that we let go here.”
Coach Alain Vigneault was having none of that.
“You know that word that starts with B?” he asked, referring to an expletive. “No. These are big games. There’s almost nothing separating teams. … I understand emotionally, but points are the same. This game was worth two. The last game was worth two. You’ve got to get up for it. You’ve got to get yourself ready.”
Goalie Carey Price stopped 40 of 41 shots to carry the Canadiens.
“Some of the good looks we had, he made the saves look pretty easy,” Niskanen said.
