Kolosov makes NHL debut, doesn’t get much help as Flyers fall to 2-6-1

Kolosov makes NHL debut, doesn’t get much help as Flyers fall to 2-6-1 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Aleksei Kolosov couldn’t save the Flyers from their up-and-down play.

John Tortorella’s club wasn’t sharp or connected at all and had to play far too much defense in a 4-3 loss Sunday night to the Canadiens at the Wells Fargo Center.

Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny provided the Flyers’ goals.

Sanheim’s first marker sent the game into first intermission tied at 1-1. Then, with the Flyers down 4-1 and under two and a half minutes remaining in the game, Sanheim and Konecny struck to make it interesting.

“This year is the year that the players that got better last year, the youth, need to get better even more this year,” Tortorella said. “And we’re kind of stuck. It surprises me a little bit, yeah, but it is what it is. The game’s funny, the game’s funny, you never where it’s going to take you.

“I just want us to not try to fix everything. You start getting into a panic mode when you’re losing some games. We just need to calm ourselves down and the biggest thing is to be together up the ice, be together coming back into our end zone and play as a group.”

The Flyers (2-6-1) have yet to win consecutive games this season. They missed out on an opportunity to sweep their back-to-back set in Philadelphia this weekend. They snapped a six-game skid Saturday afternoon with a 7-5 win over the Wild.

But they couldn’t build on it.

“No one coming, no one to dig us out of this, it’s the guys in the room,” Scott Laughton said. “We’ve got to figure this out quick. Maybe not the best time for it to happen, but it’s happening right now. We’ve got a lot of runway left, but we’ve got to figure it out.”

The Flyers have given up four or more goals in seven of their nine games and are surrendering 4.44 per game.

“We’re just not working as a group,” Sanheim said. “Last year, the reason we were so successful was it was five-man units, one after another, every line. We had an identity, we were working hard. Other teams knew that. Maybe I guess that’s part of it, is teams are aware of our success that we had last year in doing that.

“We just need to put our heads down, go to work, get to the dirty areas. Last year, we were throwing pucks from awkward angles and getting those extra rebounds. We’re just not seeing that right now. It’s something that we’ve got to change pretty quickly because the way we’re going, it’s not a good path.”

Montreal also played Saturday, picking up a 5-2 home win over the Blues to end a four-game losing streak.

The Flyers don’t see the Canadiens (4-4-1) again for a while. They have two more matchups, one at the Wells Fargo Center on March 27 and the other in Montreal on April 5.

“It’s trying to just find it as quick as possible but knowing that you can’t get too high and you can’t get too low,” Garnet Hathaway said. “You’ll hear that I think throughout the whole season and I’ve heard it my whole career. It’s never as good as you think it is and it’s never as bad. The more we find our roles and the more we pick each other up is when we’ll go in the right direction.”

• After a rocky offseason between Kolosov and the Flyers, the 22-year-old goaltending prospect made his NHL debut only nine games into the season. The Belarusian converted 20 saves on 24 shots.

“I thought our goalie played good,” Tortorella said. “I thought he made some really good saves.”

The Canadiens never trailed in the game and outscored the Flyers 3-0 in the second period.

Kolosov had little to no chance to stop Montreal’s first two goals. The one he probably could have prevented was the third, which came on a Cole Caufield power play blast. Kolosov had a sight line on the shot and let it squeeze between him and the post.

On the Canadiens’ fourth goal (and third of the second period), Kolosov lost track of a broken pass that went to a wide-open Jake Evans below the circle.

Related to a saga stemming back to May, Kolosov wasn’t in rookie camp and missed a week-plus of main camp. But after he joined the Flyers, played a few preseason games and returned to AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley, the situation has apparently been better.

“As far as attitude and where Kolosov’s mind is right now, we have gotten good reports as far as how he has gone about his business down there,” Tortorella said before the game.

Samuel Ersson was Kolosov’s backup. Ivan Fedotov, the team’s third goalie on the roster right now, was not nearly reliable enough in his three starts, which made the Flyers summon Kolosov.

Montreal netminder Cayden Primeau, the son of former Flyers captain Keith Primeau, stopped 23 shots.

• After combining for 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in the Flyers’ win over Minnesota, Konecny, Sean Couturier and Matvei Michkov combined for one point Sunday night.

The Flyers just didn’t generate much and were one and done way too many times.

“I’d like to see us play faster, it just doesn’t seem like we’re playing fast,” Tortorella said. “I think that has hurt us a little bit. We’re not sneaking up on teams. Last year, I think we felt that we snuck up on teams a little bit with our transition game.”

Defensively, Nick Seeler and Jamie Drysdale are still working to be a more consistent second pair.

• Along with Kolosov, Emil Andrae was called up Saturday night from the Phantoms and drew into the lineup. He played in place of Egor Zamula, who has fought it through eight games. The 24-year-old owns a minus-10 rating and hasn’t shown a quickness in his decision-making.

“Just the speed,” Tortorella said before the game. “Not just physical speed, but mental as far as reading plays, getting the puck up the ice quicker.”

The Flyers’ coaching staff has used Zamula as an interpreter for communicating with Michkov. Tortorella believes it has compounded things for the Russian defenseman.

“We have stopped using him as an interpreter, I think we went a little bit too far there,” the head coach said. “It’s time that we talk to Mich. It’s just too much and I think that has affected him a little bit. I just want to put him out, let him watch a game and try to regroup and then we’ll see what happens after this game.”

• The Flyers are back in action Tuesday when they visit the Bruins (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).