PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers lost their 10th straight game on Thursday night, 2-1, to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“Our job is to win and we’re not winning,” Philadelphia head coach Mike Yeo said. “We’re being challenged. We have to rise up to the challenge and find a way to be better and we have to find a way to overcome it.”
It’s the second time this season Philadelphia has lost 10 in a row.
The Flyers have collected all of three points in the skid.
“It was a tough one tonight for us,” the Flyers’ Cam Atkinson said. “We wanted to dig a little deeper, each guy, especially just knowing what was at stake. It’s definitely frustrating. Losing this many in a row is unacceptable. We just have to find a way to dig ourselves out of this. It’s not going to be pretty, but we all have to dig a little bit deeper.”
Elvis Merzlikins made 33 saves in the Jackets win.
“It’s hard to win on the road,” Blue Jackets head coach Brad Larsen said. “They’ve lost a bunch in a row, they’re trying to get a win, and we’re on the road. It’s not an easy league. We got a little jittery there at the end.”
Columbus improved to 18-18-1.
After a scoreless first period, Oliver Bjorkstrand put Columbus up, 1-0, at 11:53 of the middle frame.
Patrik Laine pushed the lead to 2-0 at 5:50 of the final stanza.
“As a staff we can go two ways,” Yeo said. ” We can try to beat them down and get mad at them. I think when you’re doing that you’re trying to motivate them. I don’t think motivation is an issue. Our execution wasn’t real sharp tonight, [but] we didn’t see any lack of desire, lack of drive. Didn’t sense any of that on the bench. The other way we can go right now just do everything we can to continue to motivate the guys and continue to come to the rink with a great attitude.”
Just past the midway point of the third, Gerry Mayhew cut into the Blue Jackets lead, with a goal to make it 2-1.
The Flyers fell to 13-19-8.
“To get going in the right direction, it’s not pretty sometimes,” Columbus’ Sean Kuraly said. “I’m not sure it was the prettiest one for us. You’re happy about it for a couple of minutes and then we’ve got another one tomorrow night against [the] Pittsburgh [Penguins].”
Carter Hart made 27 saves in the Flyers loss.
“Definitely a tough stretch for us right now but you just got to try to stay positive,” Hart said. “The last few games we’ve started to play better hockey, starting to play more of a complete game and guys are buying into our system and the changes that we’re making. It’s tough right now but you have to stay positive and it’s going to come.”
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