In Vancouver the Canucks aw their none-game point streak end on Thursday night in a 4-1 loss to the visiting Philadelphia Flyers.
Egor Zamula, Sean Walker and Joel Farabee in a three-goal middle frame to help send the Flyers to the win.
Samuel Ersson made 18 saves for the Flyers before leaving the game early in the third period for dehydration concerns.
Carter Hart made eight saves in relief.
“We played patient, waited for our opportunities. You get a couple of quick ones, it builds that momentum, and you go from there,” Farabee said. “Really like how our group played coming off the (holiday) break. It would be easy to play loose and not play our system, but I really felt like every guy was pulling on the rope.”
The Flyers improved to 19-11-4.
“That’s the beauty of having two really good goalies,” Farabee said. “You know one guy is going to pick him up, and when both guys are in the cage, we have complete trust in both guys, so I don’t think anyone skipped a beat there.”
Teddy Blueger was the lone striker for the Canucks.
After a scoreless first period, Zamula got the Flyers offense going at 15:03 of the middle frame off a power play strike and 1-0 lead.
“It’s a new look on the power play and I tried to put pucks on the net,” Zamula said. “I think it’s a most dangerous shot from up top, so I tried to put puck on the net and I see a couple guys in front, the traffic, and it goes in and this goal I think help all team play better, and we just scored more after that.”
Walker hit at 16:24 for a 2-0 lead to the Flyers.
“Nobody was really thinking Tippett was going to be able to make that play over to me,” Walker said. “Unbelievable play to get that puck to me, so I was happy I had the chance to shoot it.”
Farabee added his marker at 17:09 for a 3-0 advantage.
“Once he got close to the red line, we realized he didn’t really have any options, so Bob obviously made a really good angle play,” Farabee said. “I just picked it up and happened to score, but it’s just sticking to what we know and staying above our guys and then pouncing when we can.”
The Canucks dropped to 23-10-3.
“We weren’t invested,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “They came at us and we didn’t have any push. In the second I thought we came back a little back and then that five-minute implosion. … It’s going to get harder and harder. This is a learning lesson. We’ve got to be more invested in the game.”
Blueger scored with 25 seconds gone in the third period to get the Canucks on the board at 3-1.
Garnet Hathaway scored a shorthanded goal at 4:51 for the final count of 4-1.
Casey DeSmith made 21 saves in the loss.
“We were probably a little snoozy, not quite off the Christmas break yet,” the Canucks’ Ian Cole said. “We need to realize that a team like this that works really hard and makes you challenge every inch of ice out there. We need to realize when games are going to be hard we can’t turn pucks over. … Generally speaking, they made it hard on us and we caved.”
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