CALGARY, Alberta _ Oh, (Western) Canada.
There's something about this part of the country that hasn't agreed with the Flyers in recent years.
They started their three-game road trip Wednesday with a 3-1 loss to Calgary at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
For those scoring at home, the Flyers are now 0-5-2 in games played in Western Canada over the last three seasons.
The trip resumes Thursday in Edmonton against the upstart Oilers, then ends Sunday night in Vancouver. Thursday's game will be a rematch of feuding players, Brandon Manning and the Oilers' Connor McDavid.
The Flyers have scored a total of seven goals (excluding an empty-netter) in their last seven games.
With 13:24 left in the third, Michal Neuvirth kept the Flyers' deficit at 2-1 when he stopped Mikael Backlund on a two-on-one chance.
The Flyers had a territorial advantage in the third, but couldn't get the equalizer against goalie Brian Elliott (33 saves), who took just an .895 save percentage into the game.
The Flames tied in on Mark Giordano's empty-net goal with 38.4 seconds left.
Calgary, which was coming off Monday's 5-0 home loss to lowly Arizona, took a 2-1 lead on defenseman T.J. Brodie's first goal in the last 24 games.
Brodie put a well-placed wrist shot from the point past a screened Neuvirth on the short side with 7:15 left in the second period. The puck may have deflected off Flyers defenseman Andrew MacDonald.
The Flyers controlled most of the second period, but Elliott had all the answers, including a key stop on Jordan Weal's point-blank backhander midway through the stanza.
Calgary took a 2-1 lead into the third period despite being outshot, 25-13.
The Flyers' power play continued its inept ways during a 1-1 first period in which they missed a great chance to build a healthy lead.
Nick Cousins and Calgary's Matthew Tkachuk traded goals in the first 4:28, but the Flyers later had a five-minute power play, which included two minutes of a five on three.
Somehow, they had little zone time during the power play. They had just two shots and Calgary had 11 clears during those five minutes.
The power play started after Alex Chiasson was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for spearing Cousins. During that five-minute power play, the Flames were also called for a delay-of-game penalty.
No matter. The Flyers' power play was out of sync, much like it has been in the last few weeks.
Later in the period, Cousins drew another penalty, this one against Sam Bennett for roughing. Again, the Flyers squandered the chance, making their power play _ which thrived earlier in the season _ just 4 for 41 (9.8 percent) in their last 12 games at that time.
"The guys are getting a little angry at each other when we're not scoring and not setting it up," Cousins said of the power-play woes, "but they (the Flames) were doing a good job of killing."
Just 1:30 after the opening faceoff, Cousins' first goal in 10 games put the Flyers ahead, 1-0. Matt Read capitalized on Dennis Wideman's turnover and made a nice backhand pass in front to Cousins, who knocked his sixth goal into an empty net.
"I was fortunate enough to be sitting there in the blue crease and it came right to me," Cousins said. "It was a big goal and a pretty good road period for us."
Cousins and Weal each had four of the Flyers' 15 first-period shots.
Tkachuk tied it 2:58 after Cousins' goal, converting a slick feed from Backlund. The sequence started when Tkachuk won a faceoff from Claude Giroux.
With the loss, the Flyers missed a chance to tie Toronto, points-wise, for the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot.
