Lightning hand Flyers eighth straight loss, 7-1

PHILADELPHIA — Corey Perry hit for a pair of goals and three points on Sunday, in a 7-1 shelling of the Flyers by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The loss was the eighth straight for Philadelphia.

And the offense remains on AWOL, most likely with the defense on a sunny Caribbean beach.

Tampa Bay improved to 15-5-4.

“We knew we had to weather that first six minutes,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Short turnaround for us. They pushed and ‘Moose’ [Elliott] was there for us. You need your goalie to make those saves until we get our legs.” Cam Atkinson scored for Philadelphia (8-10-4), which is 0-6-2 in the past eight games. Martin Jones made 10 saves in relief of Carter Hart, who allowed five goals on 15 shots.

“Obviously we’re embarrassed, there’s no question about that,” Atkinson said. “Our fans are disappointed. They support us and to lay kind of a goose egg like that in front of them, it’s embarrassing.”

Brian Elliott made 38 saves in the Tampa win.

“He hasn’t played a whole lot, but when he has he’s stepped in there and really helped us,” Tampa’s Corey Perry said. “It’s a big calming influence back there when you have a guy who can step in at any given point and do what he did.”

Cam Atkinson scored for the lone goal for Philadelphia.

“We started well, we had a good few good shifts,” the Flyers’ Claude Giroux said. “They scored one and then we didn’t play the right way.”

The Lightning were relentless in posting a 6-0 lead before the Atkinson goal in the third period.

“Anytime that you come to a building that you’ve played a while at, you want to have success, you want to shake off the demons,” Elliott said. “It’s something that you definitely circle in the calendar and if you get a chance to play you want to do your best.”

Ryan McDonagh Perry made it 2-0 midway through the opening period.

The second was not much better for the Flyers, Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk doubled the advantage to 4-0 early in the middle frame.poked in a loose puck at the side of the net to make it 4-0 at 6:47 for his first NHL goal.

“If we’re going to go anywhere, we’re going to need that depth scoring,” Cooper said. “And now those guys are [scoring] and that’s why we’re seeing some results. You need those guys to put some pucks in for you.” Mathieu Joseph, who returned to the lineup after missing three games with a lower-body injury, scored shorthanded to make it 5-0 at 8:34. Hart was replaced by Jones after the goal.

The Flyers dropped to 8-10-4.

“We’ll get back at it here tomorrow,” Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “We’ll have a couple of quick meetings there, get our guys focused on what we need to do on the ice and hopefully tomorrow we can bring the energy and a better execution and a better game against a real solid team.”

Mathieu Joseph potted the fifth goal for the Lightning before the midway point of the second period.

Pat Maroon made the score 6-0 early in the third before Atkinson.

Perry closed out the scoring with a power play goal late in the final frame for the 7-1 final.