Flyers miss opportunity to gain ground in playoff chase with 4-2 loss to the Red Wings

For the Flyers, every game left is like a playoff game. They got a playofflike atmosphere at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings. The Flyers are fighting for their first postseason berth since 2020.

But despite the passionate crowd and some help from teams above them in the standings, the Flyers failed to gain any ground, losing 4-2 to the Red Wings.

“Every game’s a must-win at this point,” Travis Konecny said. “We’re looking at tomorrow, another good team we’re playing against, but this locker room here, we all believe that we’re better than any opponent we’re playing right now. Tough to get the loss, but we have all the confidence in the world that we’re going to keep playing good.”

The crowd was not happy with the officials, after the Red Wings got an early power play on a Porter Martone cross-check in the middle of a scrum. Martone said he had a bit of a “verbal interaction” with one of the officials that got caught on camera.

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The Flyers successfully killed that penalty, but after Sean Couturier took a tripping penalty in the final minute of the first period, they weren’t so lucky. Detroit’s Patrick Kane found Alex DeBrincat for a one-timer in the slot and the 1-0 lead just 17 seconds into the power play.

After getting upper-body surgery in December, Tyson Foerster wasn’t expected to play again in this season. General manager Danny Brière joked at the trade deadline that he knew Foerster would be knocking down his door to play to end the regular season, but his arm still wasn’t where it needed to be.

He returned to practice on March 17, and optimism started to build that Foerster could help the team down the stretch. With eight games left to play, Foerster was officially reactivatedon Thursday after missing 49 games.

Foerster was in the lineup and got the Flyers’ first shot on goal in his first shift. Coming into the second period, he grabbed a missed one-timer from Owen Tippett in the slot and scored to tie the game at 1-1.

“Big lift, big boost,” Konecny said. “He’s just a pure goal scorer. I’m not shocked. We all were joking before the game about him scoring, so you know he’s going to have some good looks. It’s too bad we couldn’t be celebrating right now with him.”

The Flyers dominated possession for most of the second, but Jamie Drysdale turned the puck over late in the period. Goalie Sam Ersson made the first save on J.T. Compher’s breakaway, but it led to the Red Wings’ first extended possession of the period. Detroit’s Simon Edvinsson looked for Compher in the slot, but the puck bounced right off him, and onto the waiting stick of Lucas Raymond, who easily scored to give the Red Wings a 2-1 lead.

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In the third, Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen couldn’t get a handle on the puck in the neutral zone, sparking a two-on-one for Kane and DeBrincat. Kane beat Ersson over the shoulder to extend Detroit’s lead to 3-1.

In his home debut, Martone recorded his first NHL point, throwing a puck on net that deflected off Konecny and in past Red Wings goalie John Gibson. The goal was initially waved off for goalie interference, but after a passionate effort from Konecny and a challenge from coach Rick Tocchet, Martone got on the scoresheet for the first time.

“I feel like I could have scored a couple,” Martone said. “I feel like I’m building really good chemistry with [Konecny] and [Christian Dvorak], and one’s going to find the back of the net soon enough.”

But 15 seconds later, Travis Sanheim turned the puck over in the defensive zone, and DeBrincat’s shot deflected off the stick of Ristolainen and in for his second goal of the game, putting the Red Wings ahead 4-2 for good.

The Flyers will travel to Long Island to face the New York Islanders on Friday for the second game of a back-to-back (7 p.m., NBCSP).