“We didn’t let our guard down, We played well. We took the play to them most of the game.”
“We made two mistakes in the third period we shouldn’t make and it cost us two goals. But if we play like that we’ll win a lot of hockey games. That’s got to be the focus.”
“It’s not good enough, we lost. But that’s the way we got to play. That’s the competitiveness we are looking for.”
By Mary Cunningham
The three quotes above my name emanated from the mouth of Flyers’ coach Craig Berube after Thursday night’s loss to the Minnesota Wild in which his team battled back to tie before losing 3-2.
Those quotes are meaningful because on Wednesday night the Flyers didn’t even show up at Madison Square Garden where Rangers won 2-0.
A night after Flyers GM Ron Hextall called his team’s performance “embarrassing” following a 2-0 loss in New York, Philly responded with a 3-2 home ice loss.
Jason Zucker scored the game-winner with 46 seconds remaining in the third. Nino Niederreiter and Marco Scandella had the others for Minnesota, who stretched its’ win streak to four games.
Mark Streit and captain Claude Giroux had the goals for the Flyers.
“We played the right way and had a lot of chances to score and defensively we played well too,” Giroux said. “It’s obviously frustrating for them to score there in the last minute.”
Darcy Kuemper made 37 saves improving to 9-5-0 on the season while Ray Emery stopped 26 shots in the loss.
Philly lost forward Chris VandeVelde to a lower body injury early in the third period. The team announced post-game that he is day-to-day.
