The Flyers have followed up their three-game winning streak with a three-game skid.
They lost to the Utah Hockey Club, 4-2, Sunday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
With under six minutes to go in the third period, John Tortorella's team had a chance to draw even on the power play. But the Flyers allowed a dagger of a shorthanded goal. Morgan Frost over-skated the puck in the defensive zone, which resulted in a breakaway marker for Kevin Stenlund.
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Tortorella defended Frost after the game.
"He won't do that again the rest of his career," the head coach said.
The Flyers never led Sunday night and have now dropped more than two games in a row for the first time since October, when they endured a six-game losing streak.
Joel Farabee and Owen Tippett scored goals for the Flyers (12-12-4), who are 1-4-0 in the second game of back-to-back sets. They fell to the Bruins, 4-3, in overtime Saturday afternoon at TD Garden.
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This was the first-ever matchup between the Flyers and Utah (12-11-4). The teams meet again in February when the Flyers visit Delta Center.
• The Flyers saw the return of their No. 1 goalie.
Samuel Ersson was back in net and made 21 saves on 25 shots after missing the last 11 games with a lower-body injury.
"I thought Sam played well," Tortorella said. "Looked confident."
The 25-year-old made an early stop on a semi odd-man rush for Utah. That had to be good for shaking off any rust from going 26 days without game action.
"I maybe felt a little bit rusty," Ersson said. "I think I played pretty well in the first and then in the second, I feel like I've got to come up with one of those saves there. It's one of those games for me where I kind of feel like it's not a goal, like, 'I've got to have that one.' But I need to come up with one extra save for us to get a chance to win."
Ersson didn't catch any breaks in the second period when Utah put up three goals. The first was a tough bounce off of Rasmus Ristolainen's skate. The Flyers were also making a change as Utah pushed up ice.
After Farabee answered 19 seconds later to make it 1-1, the Flyers went back down 2:22 minutes later when Juuso Valimaki redirected one past Ersson. Sean Couturier was in front battling with Valimaki.
Tippett then drew the Flyers even under four minutes later but once again Utah countered. This time, it came on the power play. For the Flyers, it was their seventh goal allowed on the penalty kill in the last four games. One of those seven was an empty-netter. Prior to this stretch, the Flyers' PK had allowed just 10 goals on the season.
"I thought our back end looked tired tonight," Tortorella said. "Have killed a lot of penalties. If there's the wear and tear from killing penalties the way we have, it's the back end. They looked tired tonight."
Utah netminder Jaxson Stauber stopped 22 of the Flyers' 24 shots.
• Two and a half hours before the game, when asked if he felt Travis Konecny would respond well to being benched for overtime Saturday, Tortorella said "sure."
The head coach didn't talk to his team about the penalties in the third period of the last two games. The Flyers' poor situational play led to them relinquishing leads and losing both games.
Konecny had an assist Sunday night on Farabee's goal. The Flyers didn't commit any penalties in the third period until the final 17 seconds but they couldn't generate a comeback.
• Matvei Michkov is on a four-game point streak in which he has recorded three goals and five assists. The prized rookie had a secondary assist on Tippett's goal.
He leads all NHL rookies with 25 points (11 goals, 14 assists) in 26 games.
• Jamie Drysdale played his first game in four weeks, drawing into the lineup for Egor Zamula.
"It was honestly really good, just the whole lead-up, finding out that I was going to be back in the lineup — real exciting," Drysdale said. "On the other front, it sucks that we didn't get the win. We play in a couple of days and we'll build from here."
The 22-year-old defenseman had been out with an upper-body injury. Over that time, Drysdale did plenty of on-ice rehab. He also had some film work with Tortorella and assistant coach Brad Shaw.
"Shawsy's done some tape with him, I put together a little bit of a tape for what we're looking for him to turn into," Tortorella said pregame. "There will be some rust, he hasn't played a lot. That position, you need to get the looks. We'll put him in there and see where he goes."
So far, so good for Drysdale. He looked spry and was a plus-1. He had a goal wiped off the board in the third period. A Utah coach's challenge had it overturned for goaltender interference by Konecny.
"The goalie interference call, in my opinion, was pretty bad," Farabee said. "The goalies don't have to fight in this league anymore. They feel contact, they throw their head back and it's waved off every time. It's kind of ridiculous if you ask me. It changes the whole game."
The goal would have tied the game at 3-3.
"It should be disallowed," Tortorella said. "You skate into [the crease] on your own, it's going to get called. So I have no beef with that at all."
• The Flyers head to Columbus, Ohio for a matchup Tuesday with the Blue Jackets (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).
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