PHILADELPHIA, The Flyers scored in the first period to take a 1-0 lead over the Chicago Blackhawks on a strike from Morgan Frost, but Petr Mrazek made 38 saves for the Blackhawks in the game for a 4-1 win on Thursday night.
“He’s a battler,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “He works hard. And there’s been so many games this year … we haven’t gotten a lot of goal support when he’s played well and kept us in the game. It’s really nice to see a guy get rewarded in that way. You can’t go out and score goals, so we’ve got to get a few for him to have success in the net.”
Chicago moved 13-26-4.
“We’re just connected right now, playing some pretty good hockey together,” Chicago defenseman Seth Jones said. “I think we’re all on the same page when it comes to how we have to play at the moment and everyone’s buying in, so it’s been good.”
Chicago got even near the midway point of the second period on a goal from Jonathan Toews, they went ahead at 15:51 of the frame on a goal from Reese Johnson .
The Flyers dropped to 19-20-7.
“To be honest, I think they just outworked us,” Frost said. “Clearly, we lacked some energy there. I don’t know what the cause of that is, but they played harder. I don’t think we really deserved to win tonight.”
Tyler Johnson scored on 35 seconds of fresh ice in the third period to push the advantage to 3-1 for the Hawks.
“The first shift [of the third] basically kind of dictated the way we’re going to play the rest of the way,” Richardson said. “It was a great goal by ‘Kaner’ shooting that puck and Tyler stripping it in the neutral zone and then finishing off at the net. I think it took some life out of them and it gave us some life. So, I think that was a big key to the game.”
Philipp Kurashev added an empty-net goal with 42 seconds left on the game clock for the 4-1 final.
“I think I’ve been a little more aggressive when we are in our zone,” Mrazek said. “I’m out of the blue (paint), I can see the puck well and guys are boxing the players [out] well so I can be more aggressive. I think it’s working right now.”
Carter Hart made 25 saves in the loss.
“Across the board we looked flat,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “I don’t think we played with enough energy. You could tell from the start it’s one of those games. I didn’t like much of it at all.”
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