Flyers drop 4-3 decision to Canadiens

PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers’ early season woes continued on Sunday with a 4-3 regulation loss to the visiting Montreal Canadiens.

A shot by Travis Sanheim #6 of the Philadelphia Flyers gets past Montreal goalie Caden Primeau #30 in the first period.

For the Habs, it was their second win in a row.

“We’re obviously in a much better place than we were on Tuesday against the [New York] Rangers (7-2 loss),” Montreal’s Mike Matheson said. “Just as I think we’re realizing that we shouldn’t get too low after that Ranger game, I don’t think we can look at these two games and say, ‘Oh, we’re all set, let’s just keep going.’ I think we still have areas to work on.”

The Flyers have just two wins in their fist nine games, 2-6-1.

“We’re just not in [five-man units],” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “You need to play up the ice in fives. It not only helps you defensively, but it helps you offensively. We’re just not playing in fives, and it’s something we have to continue to work at.”

Cayden Primeau made 23 saves in the win.

Nick Suzuki, Brendan Gallagher, Cole Caufield, and Jake Evans scored for the Canadiens who improved to 4-4-1.

“Sometimes it’s easy to focus in on points, but I’d say, especially a guy like that, he has so much more to bring to the table to help the team win,” Matheson said. “And sometimes a puck goes in off your knee, and you break a stick, and it goes to a guy back door. Sometimes those sorts of things happen, and usually they do when you’ve been doing a lot of other things well.”

Travis Sanheim hit for a double for the Flyers in the loss, Travis Konecny added a single marker for Philadelphia.

“We’re just not working as a group,” Sanheim said. “Last year, the reason we were so successful is we were five-man units one after another, every line. We had an identity, we were working hard, other teams knew that. … Just not seeing that right now. It’s something we’ve got to change pretty quickly because the way we’re going right now, it’s not a good path.”

Aleksei Kolosov made 20 saves in the loss, in his NHL debut.