NEW YORK — The Flyers were forced to play a vigorous game Thursday night at Madison Square Garden and it resulted in a 6-1 loss to the Rangers.
After watching the tape of Tuesday night's performance, John Tortorella wasn't too impressed by his team even though it won, 2-1, in overtime over the Red Wings.
"I don't think we played well at all," the head coach said Thursday before morning skate.
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He probably didn't love this one, either, especially the first period. His club relinquished an early lead and never got closer. Tortorella, though, stayed mostly positive after the game.
"To look at the score, not a chance that's the way the game was played," he said. "I thought we put a lot of good minutes in tonight."
The Flyers (22-21-6) had a three-game winning streak halted. They haven't won more than three in a row this season. They also had their season-best six-game point streak snapped (5-0-1).
Adam Fox had an empty-netter for New York and Reilly Smith tacked on one more goal. The Rangers (24-20-4) are on a 10-game point streak (7-0-3).
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The Flyers are 1-1-0 against New York this season. The clubs meet once more April 9 back here at MSG.
• Samuel Ersson surrendered more than three goals for the first time since before Christmas.
The 25-year-old had 31 saves on 36 shots.
"I've just got to find ways to come up with more key saves," Ersson said. "We don't necessarily play a bad game. I don't think it's a 6-1 game or whatever."
Filip Chytil put the Flyers in a 4-1 hole 5:15 minutes into the third period with the Rangers' second redirection. He was jostling for position with Cam York.
"They score some goals on tips and having guys in front," Ersson said. "It's my job to kind of see those pucks, though."
Ersson came in 7-1-0 with a 1.56 goals-against average, .935 save percentage and one shutout since the holiday break.
New York netminder Igor Shesterkin, who was coming off consecutive shutouts, gave one up just 1:25 minutes into the action. The Flyers beat him on an odd-man rush as Owen Tippett staked the Flyers to an early lead.
But the lead didn't last long. The Rangers countered with back-to-back goals to grab their own advantage about nine minutes later. The Flyers gave up 15 shots in the first period. Just five days ago, they allowed only 13 for a full game in a 3-1 win over the Devils.
"Give them credit, they got some opportune goals on tip-ins and some wristers in there," Tortorella said. "Their goalie plays well and they win the game."
Shesterkin ended up stopping 33 of the Flyers' 34 shots.
"I thought we developed a lot of offense; we couldn't solve their goalie," Tortorella said. "I'm certainly not blaming Ers, because some of the goals on Ers, there was nothing he could do about. Give them credit, they got some goals that they deflected in, we tried to crawl back in it and I thought their goalie stood tall."
• A big factor in the Flyers' point streak was their depth on the back end.
Egor Zamula, Rasmus Ristolainen, Nick Seeler and Jamie Drysdale were all playing real effective minutes.
But the Flyers had to play a lot of defense Thursday night and struggled. Zamula was on the ice for two of the Rangers' goals. He appeared to get boxed out on New York's game-tying 1-1 marker in the first period and was unable to block K'Andre Miller's shot in the second period, which cushioned the Rangers' lead to 3-1.
Zamula wasn't the only one to have a tough night defensively. Travis Sanheim was in front on Miller's goal and had a minus-3 mark.
"I think just some breakdowns in our D-zone," Sanheim said. "Giving up deflection goals, picking up sticks, stuff like that, [things] we've been pretty good in over the last stretch. Obviously disappointing to give up that many. But in saying that, I thought we had our looks, too. Shesterkin was pretty good tonight."
New York put plenty of traffic around Ersson and outworked the Flyers in the hard areas a few times, including its go-ahead 2-1 tally by Adam Edstrom. Seeler, Drysdale and Bobby Brink had to battle Edstrom (6-foot-6) and Matt Rempe (6-foot-9), the Rangers' towering fourth-liners.
"Four of the goals I think were point shots and screens," Tortorella said. "We're usually blocking more shots and you don't see those come up to play on us as far as tips. Tonight, it didn't happen. Give them credit."
• Matvei Michkov, who had a point in five of the last six games, went scoreless and wasn't sharp with the puck.
• The Flyers didn't have Scott Laughton (personal family matter) or Ryan Poehling (upper body).
Anthony Richard, called up Wednesday from AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley, took a skate to his face late in the second period. He appeared OK after being tended to by head athletic trainer Tommy Alva and was able to finish the game.
• The Flyers are right back at it Friday when they visit the Islanders (7:30 p.m. ET/NBCSP+).
Tortorella's club is 1-6-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets.
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