Flyers-Capitals observations: Big mistakes costly in loss

The Flyers lost to the Washington Capitals, 5-3, on Wednesday, dulling further their already remote chance of reaching the playoffs.

Here are some takeaways.

As interim coach Scott Gordon noted, there were three Flyers players in front of the net when Alex Ovechkin chased down a puck and, falling to his knees, centered a pass onto the stick of Tom Wilson for Washington’s first goal. Any one of them could have bodied either Cap and prevented it.

Ovechkin’s second point of the night, a power-play goal, was set up by John Carlson’s keep at the blueline with Scott Laughton pressuring. Laughton’s failed attempt carried him into the neutral zone, sending him frantically chasing across the offensive zone as Ovechkin teed up his familiar shot from the left circle.

The fourth Washington goal, a shot from just inside the blueline that Elliott should have stopped, came after Phil Myers fanned on a bank pass up the boards. Bad luck. Washington’s fifth goal came when Travis Sanheim and Radko Gudas — an atypical defensive pairing these days — both chased Jakub Vrana as he veered behind their net, leaving Backstrom wide open for a pass in the slot.

While injuries and makeshift pairings contributed, this was a harrowing reversion to the earlier-season form that made this desperate charge necessary — and a coaching change as well.

“I don’t think there was one thing,” Gordon said. “Our pace of play, I didn’t think we did a lot away from the puck to support. Offensive zone, we had a few turnovers. Defensive zone coming back for breakouts, I thought we made it easy for them to gain the zone and attack. Missed coverages in the slot …”

Brett Connolly’s goal, which was awarded after a stoppage and video review, actually glanced off Brian Elliott’s glove before sneaking inside the crossbar. It’s probably why no one heard that familiar ping sound, because the puck sort of fluttered its way in there.

It was the second time a goal has been scored after going through Elliott’s glove during his renaissance as the Flyers’ main man in net. During the Stadium Series game, a puck glanced off the top of his glove and trickled into the net behind him. It pushed Pittsburgh ahead by 3-1 and seemed to spell doom for the Flyers.

Elliott was asked then if the elements contributed. “I’m not making any excuses for that one,” he said after the Flyers rallied for a 4-3 overtime win. “I just didn’t catch it and couldn’t find it up top.”

There have been other times when that glove hand has forsaken him, too. He might want to try a new glove.

On Tuesday, Scott Gordon threw cold water on Carter Hart’s returning in time for Saturday’s game on Long Island, saying he had not logged enough practice time to warrant it after sitting out the last two weeks with what is believed to be a high ankle sprain.

He might want to rethink that after what he saw Wednesday. The Flyers built their confidence for this 17-5-2 run via the early acrobatics of their 20-year-old goalie. They might need to regain it through him, too.

The recent call-up scored his first goal as a Flyer with 12 seconds left in the second period, a no-doubt razor over the shoulder of Braden Holtby from the slot.

“Obviously, it’s nice to see the puck go in and we sort of built off of that and played well in the third, but the way we played in the first two periods, that can’t happen, especially in a big game like this," Myers said. "We just have to play like the way we did in the third for 60 minutes, and if we do that, I think we could beat a lot of hockey teams.

"We’re a good hockey team when we do that, but like I said, we can’t play 40 minutes of hockey like we did there in the first and second and expect to win games. I think we just got to build on the third period and get ready for the next game.”

When the Flyers scored with 12 seconds left in the second period and then again 10 seconds into the third, it marked the first time in franchise history that the team had scored both in the last 15 seconds of one period and in the first 15 seconds of the subsequent period.

The Flyers had only done it twice before in the last/first 20 seconds of a period: Feb. 20, 2013 at Pittsburgh (a 6-5 victory) and March 4, 1986 vs. Buffalo (a 6-4 loss).