To say the least, the Flyers and St. Louis Blues are entering Thursday’s matchup in Philadelphia with varying degrees of short-term momentum.
The Flyers are coming off a crisp 2-0 road win over the Boston Bruins — their first regulation win in Boston in more than 13 years. The Blues, meanwhile, were crushed 8-1 by the Ottawa Senators in their most recent outing.
Philadelphia knows what it feels like to experience tough defeats, as the team dropped six straight games prior to its current 2-1-0 run that has included quality wins over the Minnesota Wild and Bruins.
Samuel Ersson made 23 saves to fuel the team’s win over Boston, while Tyson Foerster scored the decisive goal for Philadelphia.
“We’re just trying to get back to (grinding out wins) here,” Foerster said. “That gives us some confidence that we can play in these games, and we got a win tonight, which helps.”
Ersson likely will be back in net Thursday, as the Flyers have struggled to get consistent goaltending from backups Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov.
“He fights, and the team likes playing in front of him,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said of Ersson. “It’s such a unique position as far as what a goaltender does for a team’s psyche, and Sam has done that pretty steady for us. … Sam made some big saves at key times to keep us there.”
Despite their improved play of late, the Flyers still are looking up at most teams in the Eastern Conference standings. Several of those teams — the Bruins, Hurricanes, Lightning and defending champion Panthers — are on Philadelphia’s schedule immediately after its clash with St. Louis.
“We’ve got a long way to go, but it’s a good start,” said forward Scott Laughton.
The Blues, naturally, are not feeling as positive these days after their 8-1 setback to Ottawa.
“Early on, I thought it was self-inflicted, but overall, as a group, as a whole, coaches included, that wasn’t a good effort,” Blues coach Drew Bannister said. “Internally, we’re going to have to figure out what the issues are.”
St. Louis captain Brayden Schenn believes that list of issues might include some toughness concerns.
“I think it’s pretty plain and simple, kind of, in our minds,” said Schenn, a former Flyer. “Just soft in the battles and soft kind of all over the ice. (Our) competitive level wasn’t there and (we) turned over pucks. Before you know it, that’s the score. But that’s kind of two games in a row now (including a 5-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday). That’s 13 goals (against because we are) not playing the right way.”
The Blues, who had 23 giveaways against the Senators, are 1-2-0 on their current four-game road trip. They posted an impressive 5-1 victory in Toronto to begin the trek before the lopsided defeats against Montreal and Ottawa.
“We just know that it’s not acceptable,” defenseman Justin Faulk said. “Our effort, and you can name it, just wasn’t close to what you need to have at this level. You’ve just got to take it head on, know what happened and you’ve got to move on.”
Jordan Binnington will likely be between the pipes for St. Louis after Joel Hofer started and allowed five goals on 21 shots against Ottawa.
