The Flyers and New York Rangers are short on motivation because they are both on the verge of falling out of the East Division playoff race, so it wasn’t surprising that the teams muddled through a sloppy game Friday at Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers were not as bad as the Flyers as they registered a 4-1 win.
Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, Pavel Buchnevich and Alexis Lafrenière each had two points for the Rangers.
The Rangers, who have eight games left, moved to within six points of Boston for the final East Division playoff spot. The Bruins, upset by Buffalo on Friday, have two games in hand.
Trailing 2-1, Alex Lyon stopped Chris Kreider as he burst past Shayne Gostisbehere and fired a 20-foot wrist shot with 18:25 left in regulation.
Two minutes later, Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev denied the ever-present Sean Couturier in front. He then made a solid pad save on James van Riemsdyk, keeping his team in front.
But Lafreniere, the No. 1 overall draft pick last year, scored his ninth goal of the season to make it 3-1 with 10:36 to go. Filip Chytil later made it 4-1.
The Flyers squandered a five-on-three power play for 1:22 late in the second period. After the power play turned into a five-on-four, Lyon stopped center Chytil’s short-handed breakaway to keep the Flyers’ deficit at 2-1.
Lyon made his second start of the season and 12th of his career, which has spanned parts of four seasons with the Flyers. He was searching for his first win since 14 months ago (6-3 over Colorado) and his first road victory in three years (4-2 in Carolina)
It was the finale of a bizarre eight-game season series in which the Rangers outscored the Flyers 21-4 in their three regulation wins, including 9-0 and 8-3 wipeouts.
It was a series in which the Flyers went 4-3-1, despite getting outscored, 33-20.
It was a series in which Zibanejad had 18 points against the Flyers, tied for the third-most ever produced against them in a single season.
The only players who had more: Legendary forwards Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy, Hall of Famers who each had 19 points in a season vs. Philadelphia. Bossy did it for the Islanders in 1981-82, and Lemieux duplicated the feat in 1992-93, a season in which he had 69 goals and 160 points in 60 games. (In case you were curious, Bossy had 64 goals and and 147 points in 80 games during the year he torched the Flyers. And others.)
As has become customary in the last seven-plus weeks, the Flyers fell behind early. They gave up the first goal for the 15th time in the last 17 games as Kreider scored on a power-play tip-in, his 20th goal of the season.
After Oskar Lindblom tied it with his seventh goal, Buchnevich scored his 20th goal, beating Lyon as the defense allowed him to skate in unopposed from the right end line. That gave the Blueshirts a 2-1 lead with 12:04 left in the first.
Looking for a reason why the Flyers have fallen out of the playoff race?
Try this: Since the start of March, the Flyers have been outscored in the first period 42-18.
Another reason for their fade: They have averaged about two goals in their last 18 games. Before that, they were scoring at a 3.3 goals-per-game clip in their first 28 contests.
