The Flyers Postgame Live crew broke down the team’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Utah Hockey Club.
VOORHEES, N.J. — It looked as if the Flyers were caught off guard Tuesday night when Dylan Guenther handed them a 3-2 overtime loss at the buzzer.
The Utah winger made a late bolt through the Flyers' defense and fired home a shot with just one second left on the clock at Delta Center. Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim and Scott Laughton almost appeared unsuspecting of Guenther, who decided to make a last-ditch effort to end the game before the shootout.
And did.
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"I just don't think we played through the overtime," Tortorella said Thursday morning ahead of his team's home game against the Capitals (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP). "I think Guenther kind of let them fall asleep a little bit because it looked like they were just going to keep it in the neutral zone and let it run out as the play was going. And then he just took off. That's a huge mindset mistake that we have to learn from.
"We stopped playing. I think it's a combination of all three [players]. Laughts follows his guy, the guy's changing. T.K. stops playing a little bit. All he needs to do is not stand still and let Guenther attack. I think he needs to get up the ice and just have some sort of pressure on him, angle him, push him one way or another. And I think Sanny has got to come up also and absorb the rush where they're both not standing still."
As Guenther beat Konecny, Sanheim was the Flyers' last line of defense in front of Samuel Ersson.
"There's a lesson to be learned," Sanheim said. "You think that it's done and that it's going to a shootout. We're obviously man on man in overtime, I was initially on Guenther and then [Clayton] Keller came flying through so I kind of rolled off. And then I just didn't think that they were even going to attack again."
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Sanheim nearly recovered to break up the play.
"I think he can get a stick on the puck," Tortorella said. "He doesn't, it looks bad, but defensemen always have to take the brunt of everything else that happened in front of them. A lot of other things happened."
With 16 seconds left, Konecny tried to backhand a pass to Laughton, who was streaking backdoor to the net. Keller cut off the pass, which gave Utah one last rush up ice.
"It shouldn't have happened," Konecny said of Guenther's final shot. "I think you can look back at my play with like 15 seconds left or 10 seconds left, when I threw that puck away. It probably should have never gotten to that situation."
Sanheim felt he could have played better defense on Guenther.
"My gap on him, I went a little bit more to the right than I should have," he said. "I should have went more up and back. In saying that, I still think that I could have gotten a stick on it and deflected it out. Just playing to that final whistle and a lesson learned."
The Flyers were unable to reward Ersson with a win. The 25-year-old made a career-high 39 saves.
"He walked on the bus, it was the first time I saw him after the game and I told him it was probably one of the best goaltending performances I've seen," Tortorella said. "And it is. Thirty-plus chances, never seen anything like it, how many chances were on Sam. It's the best I've seen him play by far and probably one of the best ones I've seen in my career."
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