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Greg Wyshynski
Multiple Authors
PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers were frustrated by the officiating, the Hurricanes’ penalty kill and their own mistakes in a Game 3 loss Thursday night.
But most frustrating for them is that they’re one loss from being swept out of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“We’re not going to quit,” center Christian Dvorak said after Carolina took a 3-0 series lead with a 4-1 win. “[People] thought we were dead at the Olympic break, and we fought our way into the playoffs. I know we’re not going to quit here.”
The Hurricanes improved to 7-0 in the playoffs, having swept the Ottawa Senators in the first round.
“The fourth one is the hardest one to win; no one wants to go home,” said Carolina captain Jordan Staal, who scored the opening goal and assisted on the winner Thursday night. “It’s going to be a brand-new challenge, a brand-new start. We’re going to have to find ways to win the game, and it might look a little different than the first three.”
If the Flyers are to rally in this series, they’ll need to find levels of discipline and execution they couldn’t attain at home in Game 3. Philadelphia had 38 penalty minutes and 14 minor penalties. Dvorak and defenseman Jamie Drysdale had three minor penalties each.
Many of the calls were retaliatory or failed attempts to rattle the Hurricanes — such as when Travis Konecny earned 14 penalty minutes in the third period while attempting to rough up Carolina defenseman K’Andre Miller, who smiled through the attack.
“That’s a lot of penalties,” said Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, who declined to critique the officials’ performance in Game 3. “We’ve just got to understand that when you’re in a scrum and you take a punch in the mouth, just don’t do anything. Just take the power play.”
Tocchet said his players lacked an understanding of how the game was being called.
“The officials are calling penalties, and you can tell they’re antsy,” he said. “It’s not the right time to go and do something, even borderline. And I think we did that.”
The game’s turning point was also influenced by the officiating, as what appeared to be a major penalty on Carolina’s Taylor Hall in the second period was reduced after video review.
With 4:12 left in the period, Hall skated over to deliver a hit on Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim, who had dropped to one knee after the puck was played ahead. Hall crushed him against the sideboards. The officials gave him a five-minute major penalty for boarding to review the call.
After a lengthy look, they determined it was worth only a minor penalty, to the protest of the orange-clad fans and the Flyers’ bench.
“I was just trying to make a play on the puck,” Sanheim said. “I fell to one knee and was just trying to get it out, in a vulnerable spot. He decides to finish his check. It just felt like his hands drove my head right through the wall. I thought it was a pretty dirty play, but they obviously thought it was two minutes. It just felt like he could have laid off a little bit. He decided to put me right through the wall. I guess that’s his decision.”
But instead of building momentum on the power play, the Flyers watched the Hurricanes steal it away. Jordan Martinook poked the puck past Drysdale at the point to spring Staal on an odd-man rush. He sent a pass through the legs of Trevor Zegras, who scored earlier in the period to tie the score, to defenseman Jalen Chatfield for his first goal of the playoffs to make it 2-1.
“You want to win games and play hard and give them nothing,” Staal said. “They’re trying to find ways to get going, and we want to frustrate them as best as we can. So, we’re definitely taking pride in that.”
Carolina made it 3-1 in the third period after Flyers defenseman Cam York was given an interference penalty on Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen. Winger Andrei Svechnikov snuck a shot past goalie Dan Vladar for his first goal of the postseason at 3:52. Just 3:16 after that, Nik Ehlers scored on a breakaway to encourage Flyers fans to start beating the traffic home.
The Flyers said they liked their 5-on-5 game but that all the penalties in Game 3 didn’t allow them to play enough at even strength. Their power play went 0-for-5 in over seven minutes with the man advantage, including a 5-on-3 in the second period. Carolina scored twice on the power play.
“It felt like there were people in the box the entire game. Myself included,” Drysdale said.
NHL teams that build a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series have gone on to win 98% of the time (212-4 record). But the Flyers are one of the four teams to rally from such a deficit, coming back to eliminate the Boston Bruins in the 2010 conference semifinals en route to winning the Eastern Conference championship.
“We’ve got nothing to lose. We were just in a series where it was reversed, and Pittsburgh gave us a good run,” said Drysdale, whose team needed six games to eliminate the Penguins after taking a 3-0 lead. “This team in here won’t go down easy.”
Game 4 is back in Philadelphia on Saturday.
