In Tampa Friday night, the Philadelphia Flyers surprised the Lightning in a 5-3 win to snap the Bolts home win streak at eight games.
The win ended a three-game skid for the Flyers.
“I think we were all pretty hard on ourselves for the result from [Thursday],” Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol said of their 3-2 loss at the Florida Panthers. “The biggest and most important thing you can do is have the right answer, and our players had the right answer tonight.”
Sean Couturier had a goal and three points in win over Tampa Bay Friday night – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
The Flyers’ goals came from the sticks of Wayne Simmonds, Sean Couturier, Shayne Gostisbehere, Brandon Manning, and Valtteri Filppula.
“You could tell right from the beginning we had a little more pep in our step,” Gostisbehere said. “Our battle level was a lot higher tonight, and it showed on the scoreboard.”
Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Tyler Johnson scored for the Lightning in the loss.
“It will be a boring answer, but we didn’t play well,” Stamkos said. “Didn’t execute. Didn’t deserve to win. Didn’t have the will to win. Not going to win when you don’t have those things.”
Brian Elliott made 24 saves to pick up the win as the Flyers improved to 16-14-8.
“[The Lightning] have been on fire all season playing really well,” said Filppula, who played for Tampa Bay from 2013-17. “It’s good for us to see where we stand and to know that we have a chance against anybody.”
Tampa dropped to 27-8-2 with the loss.
“You have to take positives out of everything,” Johnson said. “We know what we did wrong. There are times when you win games and you don’t deserve them. Tonight, we didn’t deserve to win and we didn’t win, so we got to be better.
“We got to learn from this. That’s what the regular season is all about. We have to get better every day.”
[WATCH:Â All Flyers vs. Lightning highlights]
Peter Budaj made 29 saves in the start for the Bolts but left the game midway through the third period with an injury.
“We [stunk]. They were way better than us. They deserved the two points. We didn’t deserve anything. Just name it. Penalty kill. [Stunk]. Forecheck. [Stunk]. Didn’t shoot the puck. [Stunk]. Didn’t defend. [Stunk]. Coaching. [Stunk]. Just go through the list. But in saying that, we were playing somebody else that made us that way,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said after the game.
Andrei Vasilevskiy came in and made four stops in relief.
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