![\"Tampa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/TMC-Z-Flyers-Hockey_258146532-1.jpg\")
Tampa Bay Lightning\u2019s Erik Cernak, right, checks Philadelphia Flyers\u2019 Denver Barkey along the boards during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Derik Hamilton)<\/p>\nPHILADELPHIA \u2013 The standings say the Flyers are right up there among the Eastern Conference leaders.<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, Tampa Bay arrived at Xfinity Mobile Arena to show the home team that, realistically, there\u2019s still some work to be done.<\/p>\n
The Lightning, now winners of nine straight games, pretty much dominated play in this one from start to finish.<\/p>\n
They skated away with an easy 7-2 win.<\/p>\n
However, the Flyers won\u2019t have to wait long to exact a little revenge. In a rare scheduling quirk, the two teams will meet again on Monday night on the same sheet of ice.<\/p>\n
Even with the loss, the suddenly banged-up (no Jamie Drysdale, Bobby Brink or Travis Konecny) Flyers still hold the third spot in the Metropolitan Division standings.<\/p>\n
Flyers coach Rick Tocchet chose to start Samuel Ersson over Dan Vladar in goal for this encounter with the Lightning and while Ersson did not play all that badly, he didn\u2019t do enough to improve his .839 career save percentage against the Lightning. To be fair, a number of Tampa goals were on breakaways or the like as the Flyers defense completely fell apart in the third period.<\/p>\n
Much of the postgame talk centered around Ersson\u2019s performance and how much of an opportunity will the Flyers get when the two teams meet again on Monday.<\/p>\n
Tocchet gave Ersson a bit of a pass because Tampa had so many Grade-A scoring chances, particularly in the third period. That\u2019s when the Flyers appeared to wave the white flag.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t mind half the game,\u201d Tocchet said of the first 30 minutes when the Flyers still trailed only 2-1. \u201cThey\u2019ve got sharpshooters, good players. It\u2019s one of those games. When you play the game long enough, you have those types of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The seven goals were the most the Flyers have allowed this season. Their previous high was five on several occasions.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple guys that we count on to score turned the puck over too much,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cYou can\u2019t play that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ersson was asked to take part in the post-game media access session but the Flyers declined the request.<\/p>\n
Tocchet acknowledged Ersson is not on top of his game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he\u2019s struggling,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cYou can tell. Tough night. In your NHL career, you\u2019re going to have your head in the mud and you\u2019ve got to get yourself out of it. You have to work harder, analyze things. You have to really dig down.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are some who believe that Aleksei Kolosov, who is playing well for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, might be called up in relief as the secondary goalie if Ersson continues to struggle.<\/p>\n
Monday should be an interesting test of character for the Flyers. They\u2019ve lost back-to-back regulation-time games only once this year. The Lightning are going to try to make that two.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cAfter a loss we bounce back pretty good. Maybe get some healthy bodies back. If not, we have to roll up the sleeves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sean Couturier, Owen Tippett and Garnet Hathaway had similar sentiments.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of those games that you have to forget,\u201d Couturier said. \u201cGet a chance to play them again on Monday and get two points back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tippett said: \u201cPlay them again Monday. Learn from it and bounce back. We\u2019ll go right back at it. We have to be better in front of him [Ersson].\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Lightning\u2019s Erik Cernak, right, checks Philadelphia Flyers\u2019 Denver Barkey along the boards during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Derik Hamilton)<\/p>\n
Hathaway has played well in two straight games. He was involved in the offense, waged a good fight and was aggressive with his body checking. He even got his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
He, along with other Flyers, told Ersson this disaster wasn\u2019t all his fault.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we played as defensively sound as we need to,\u201d Hathaway said. \u201cAgainst this very offensive-minded team. And that\u2019s not on him. He played great all year. Forget it, put it in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to watch a lot of tape. Talk about it. It\u2019s nice that we play them in two nights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikita Kucherov, who finished with two goals\/four points for the night, got the Lightning off to a strong start in the first period. He scored twice to give his team a 2-1 lead at the first intermission.<\/p>\n
Kucherov\u2019s first goal came just 1:49 into the game. He was left open at the right post and had no trouble sending Brayden Point\u2019s pass into the net.<\/p>\n
The Flyers got one back on Hathaway\u2019s goal at 4:45. Noah Juulsen\u2019s point shot deflected off Hathaway and past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. It was also Hathaway\u2019s first point of the season.<\/p>\n
That tie didn\u2019t last long. Kucherov struck again at 6:05. His wide-angle shot from the left faceoff dot eluded Ersson.<\/p>\n
In the second period, the Flyers managed to keep Tampa off the board until the 13:37 mark. Ersson stopped an initial shot by Charle-Edouard D\u2019Astous but Nick Paul was quick to the rebound and it was 3-1.<\/p>\n
Kucherov picked up his third point of the game at 2:03 of the third period when he sprung Cage Goncalves to make it 4-1. Then the Lightning made it 5-1 with a goal from Brandon Hagel at 3:37.<\/p>\n
The Flyers did get one back on a Tippett power-play goal at 4:45 but was a bit too little too late.Kucherov would get his fourth point when he assisted on Tampa\u2019s seventh goal, the second for Goncalves.<\/p>\n
Short shots<\/p>\n
Before Saturday night\u2019s game, the Flyers had held an opponent under 20 shots on seven occasions. That\u2019s tied with Utah for third-best in the NHL in that category.<\/p>\n
Wayne Fish is a freelance writer. Follow his coverage at www.flyingfishhockey.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2013 The standings say the Flyers are right up there among the Eastern Conference leaders. On Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5691,35502,110,135,137,136,57776],"class_list":{"0":"post-113998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tampa","12":"tag-tampa-headlines","13":"tag-tampa-news","14":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}