BUFFALO, N.Y. _ Addressing a reporter after the morning skate Friday, right winger Jake Voracek said the Flyers were able to bounce back from their recent 10-game losing streak when they went out for a team dinner and cleared the air in Calgary.
"We got drunk, that helped," he told NHL.com, adding that the players went over things they needed to do better and had some "heart-to-hearts."
Maybe they should have had a few alcoholic beverages the night before playing the lowly Buffalo Sabres at the KeyBank Center on Friday.
Sabres 4, Flyers 2.
The Flyers, who got to within 2-1 on Michael Raffl's power-play goal with 2:10 to go, missed a chance to move within one point of a playoff spot.
Buffalo, which entered the night with just three wins in the last six weeks, snapped a scoreless tie when Ryan O'Reilly's bad-angle shot from behind the goal line beat Brian Elliott to the short side with 16 minutes and 1 second left in regulation.
Evander Kane tipped in Josh Gorges' point drive to make it 2-0 with 8:52 remaining.
After Raffl's tip-in goal, the Sabres made it 3-1 on Jack Eichel's empty-net tally with 67 seconds remaining. Shayne Gostisbehere cut it to 3-2 with 31.9 seconds left, but Eichel's second empty-netter closed the scoring just before the final buzzer.
The Flyers (15-13-7) seemed a step slower than the Sabres (9-19-7) all night, failed to connect on their first four power plays _ including a 40-second two-man advantage in the third period when they had zero shots _ and they lost for just the second time in their last nine games.
The Sabres outplayed the Flyers in the first period, outshooting them, 16-11, and having more quality scoring chances. Kane had the best opportunity but was stopped by Elliott on a penalty shot with 16:18 left in the first.
Kane intercepted a Robert Hagg pass and went in on a breakaway and was pulled down by Gostisbehere, resulting in the penalty shot. But Elliott _ who took a 12-1-2 career record against Buffalo into the game _ stood tall and made a glove save.
"We have to make sure we're not checking out before Christmastime," Flyers right winger Travis Konecny said before the game. "Everyone's excited to see their families and stuff, but there are going to be two hard road games we have to finish out, and it's just going to be a matter of keeping it simple on the road."
But they were outworked in the first 40 minutes by a team that took a 4-10-2 home record into the game, a team at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
The Flyers, who play in Columbus (where they have lost 10 straight) on Saturday night, had no sustained pressure in the first period and made life easy on Buffalo goalie Robin Lehner. The Flyers' best chance _ a two-on-one short-handed rush between Val Filppula and Raffl _ was broken up by Eichel's hustling backchecking.
Elliott continued to shine in the second period and was the only reason the Flyers didn't fall behind. Twenty seconds into the period, he made a tough spin-around save on Marco Scandella's point blast. With 13 minutes to go in the second, he denied a three-shot Buffalo flurry, twice denying Kane and robbing Kyle Okposo on a one-timer from the slot.
The Flyers, meanwhile, had two second-period power plays and both were stagnant.
Lehner stopped Nolan Patrick on a semi-breakaway with 3:28 left in the second, and with the puck bouncing, Travis Sanheim couldn't deposit the rebound. So the teams headed into the third period locked in a scoreless tie.
