Tuesday night was a yo-yo.
The Flyers were tossed down, strung themselves back up, fell again, then tried to propel another wind back before the string broke.
They lost to the Calgary Flames, 6-3, opening up a seven-game homestand at the Wells Fargo Center that can either make or break their narrow playoff hopes with a setback.
They're still four points out from the East's second Wild Card spot with the rest of Tuesday night's results final, but with six teams to leapfrog, which is a task only made that much harder with each passing game and with Friday's trade deadline hanging over their heads.
Rough start, and a faceplant after putting up one of their best efforts of the season on Saturday out in Winnipeg, all with a ticking clock.
"First of all, I'm gonna flush it down the toilet," head coach John Tortorella said postgame of Tuesday night's performance. "But I also have to figure out how – because it's that second day after those long trips, I think that affected us…
"But give Calgary credit. They checked. It was hard to get through the neutral zone. We were sloppy, but they checked very well, too…It was a group effort."
A Connor Zary deflection in front, a Nazem Kadri snipe off the rush from an opportune bounce off a stanchion, and then a sharp-angle shot from Zary along the goal line for his second immediately put the Flyers in a 3-0 hole, and saw Sam Ersson get pulled for Ivan Fedotov just shy of 10 minutes in.
Noah Cates cleaned up and scored on a sequence where Tyson Foerster got tripped crossing the offensive blue line to get the Flyers on the board, then Andrei Kuzmenko took the puck away in the neutral zone and rifled a wrist shot home against his former team to make it a one-goal game.
That didn't last long. Yegor Sharangovich batted a rebound past Fedotov seconds later, and in the second, MacKenzie Weegar, with space and through traffic, scored a power-play goal that a late tap-in from Sean Couturier in the third couldn't mount a comeback from.
Tortorella juggled the lines, but that couldn't spark any energy.
Calgary's Matt Coronato took off down the rink and sunk the empy-netter with a minute left, and that was it. The string broke.
"D zone, neutral zone, offensive zone, we couldn't seem to find some traction," Cates said. "When you get in that, you just gotta be simple, and I think today that wasn't really where our minds went after stumbling out of the gate. So kind of just a learning lesson that when we're simple, no matter who we're playing, that's kind of where we get some success and just find our game."
On to a rematch with the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night, and then that Friday deadline.
A few more thoughts leaving the Wells Fargo Center…
State of the trade
Nothing trade-related involving Philadelphia happened as of late Tuesday night.
Scott Laughton is still a Flyer.
Rasmus Ristolainen is still a Flyer.
And A.J. Brown is still an Eagle, as he will continue to be – cc Boston radio.
There's some buzz, of course. There always is. But all things considered, it's relative yet maybe a bit uneasy quiet right now – for now – with the Flyers waiting out their hand, provided there's a card they even want to play before Friday.
Of note, however, was the trade the Oilers made with the Bruins earlier Tuesday, acquiring depth center Trent Frederic as the main piece in a three-team deal facilitated by the New Jersey Devils.
- MORE FLYERS
- NHL Trade Deadline: Where the Flyers stand with Scott Laughton, Rasmus Ristolainen rumors
- Matvei Michkov, Flyers stay hot as trade deadline closes in, other thoughts
- Flyers prospects: Checking in on Jett Luchanko, Denver Barkey, others in the system
In full, the Oilers got Frederic and winger Max Jones; the Bruins got defensive prospect Max Wanner, a 2025 second-round draft pick (via St. Louis), and a 2026 fourth-round pick; and the Devils retained 50 percent of Frederic's remaining $2.3 million cap hit for Edmonton while netting unsigned forward prospect Shane LaChance.
That's a center off the board with the clock ticking down, and potentially, a price-setter, too, as Laughton boasts similar production, but with the sticking point of that extra year under contract that could up the cost.
Nothing has happened yet, but there are still a couple of days left.
Let's see where it goes.
Cates is firing
Cates' goal on Tuesday night was his fourth in as many games, and his 14th of the season to set a new career-high.
His line with Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster on his wings has been covering the ice like crazy, and has been one of the main factors in the Flyers' surge coming back from the 4 Nations break.
For Cates' role in it, the puck has just been finding him in open space of late, and he's been stepping up to those chances with some great shots.
Hey, he'll take it, but he wants that production to keep going toward the bigger picture.
"Happy with my game, happy with how our line's playing and finding chemistry and just kind of building every game," Cates said in the Flyers' locker room postgame. "We had a good start to this post-break little stretch, and we have a huge homestand here. We can't let [this loss] affect us. We gotta keep going and just find wins on this homestand. It's huge for us."
The 14th goal of the season for @cates_noah is a career-high as this line keeps cooking. 🧑🍳#CGYvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/HlIbZya7jr
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) March 5, 2025
Konecny is struggling
Then there's the flipside of the coin: Travis Konecny is in a rut.
He's still the Flyers' leading scorer after 62 games, and is just over a point-per-game pace with 63 on the year, but he only has two assists and a minus-4 rating since coming back from the 4 Nations Face-Off, and going further back, has only one goal over his last 15 games.
"You can probably assume how I feel," Konecny told the media after Tuesday night's loss . "Pretty frustrated."
Matvei Michkov is the rapidly rising star, and the Foerster-Cates-Brink line has the hot hand right now, but the Flyers' offensive success still very much relies on Konecny streaking up the wall with the puck and using his quick reactions to generate chances.
But little is going his way right now.
Konecny started the night on a line with Kuzmenko and Laughton, but he was part of the line shuffling mid-game that Tortorella admitted afterward was partially in an attempt to try and jump-start the star winger.
Konecny skated 21:01 against Calgary, the second-most ice time on the team behind Ristolainen (23:43). He ended the night with two shots on goal, but for no points and a minus-1 mark.
"He's struggling, yeah, trying to get him going," Tortorella said. He wasn't the only one. There were a number of people that struggled, but yeah, it's been a struggle for him, and it didn't get any better tonight.
"Hopefully, he'll have something good happen for him here in the next game somewhere. I'm not sure what the lines will consist of, but it's important that we get him going. He's a huge part of this as we enter this last quarter."
Frost and Farabee welcomed back
Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost made their first trip back to Philadelphia since the trade to the Flames at the end of January.
They took their morning skate at the Wells Fargo Center and to their stalls in the visiting locker room. They both admitted it felt a bit weird, and that at least the early part of Tuesday night's game might, too.
But they said they're pretty settled in with Calgary now, and the schedule allowed them to fly into Philadelphia a day beforehand so that they could reconvene with former teammates and say the proper goodbyes they never got to on the way out.
"Only great memories here, and the guys are awesome," Frost said earlier Tuesday. "I got some friends for life over there."
It's just that the run in Philadelphia reached a point where it was time for all parties to move on.
Frost and Farabee both hit a ceiling here, and after a year and a half to two years of stalled play or minor steps forward, it was clear that was the most they were going to bring the Flyers on the organization's current trajectory.
The Flames were willing to take both as depth for their playoff push, and Farabee's contract in full, which was going to afford the Flyers cap flexibility they were going to need for later – plus Andrei Kuzmenko, Jakob Pelletier, and a couple of picks.
It's the business.
"I think it's a trip that in the coming years, I'll always look forward to coming back here," Farabee said. "This is a team that took a chance and drafted me and believed in me.
"I have nothing but good things to say about this organization. It's a great building to play in."
And halfway through a chaotic first period, the building gave them their moment.
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