The Flyers competed until the end against the Islanders at UBS Arena.
After a 6-0 blowout loss to the New Jersey Devils in their preseason opener on Monday, the Philadelphia Flyers were hungry to get back on the ice and put together a somewhat respectable performance in their second preseason game.
They succeeded, but it still didn't result in a win.
The Flyers fell to the New York Islanders by a score of 2-1 Wednesday night. However, unlike their performance in Game 1 of the preseason, Game 2 offered some reasons for optimism. They outshot the Islanders 30-19 and generated a fair amount of scoring chances — they just suffered the unfortunate consequences of playing against all-world netminder Ilya Sorokin for much of the contest.
"I think we were the better team, to be honest," said Lehigh Valley Phantoms head coach Ian Laperriere, who has substituted for John Tortorella behind the Flyers bench in both of the Flyers' first two preseason games.
"I really liked the effort today from the get-go. We haven't worked much on systems, but I felt like the guys really responded to the meetings that we had today."
It helped that the players weren't completely fatigued Wednesday night, which Laperrierre hinted may have been the case against the Devils on Monday.
"They were fresher. Let's be honest, two days ago was right after a lot of skating day to day. Those guys worked hard, but they didn't have any legs. Tonight, a little bit fresher."
For the first time this preseason, the Flyers finally managed to find the back of the net. Newcomer Ryan Poehling potted the goal late in the third period after Scott Laughton fired what appeared to be an intentional bank pass from the point that ricocheted to the front of the net. Poehling was in the right place at the right time.
The Islanders struck first 12:38 into the opening period when Simon Holmstrom redirected a Travis Mitchell wrister into the air and over the head of Flyers goaltender Felix Sandstrom. The Isles scored another strange goal on the power play in the middle frame when Julien Gauthier recovered a whiffed shot attempt by Robin Salo and fired a snapshot past goalie Sam Ersson, who manned the crease in the second and third period.
Sandstrom and Ersson are both competing for the backup goalie job behind Carter Hart to start the season. After two games of preseason action, Ersson may have the slight edge. The 23-year-old stopped 12 of 13 shots faced in two periods of action against the Islanders and appeared locked in despite giving up the power-play goal in the second frame. In the first period, Sandstrom turned aside five of six shots, though the goal he allowed was a bit fluky.
"I'm battling to get a shot here, and I know the other guys are too. We're just battling hard every day," Sandstrom told the media after the game. "That's where my focus is — play as good as I can and show that I deserve a spot on the team."
Defenseman Ronnie Attard was noticeable throughout the night. He didn't end up on the scoresheet, but he did generate multiple quality scoring chances and didn't hesitate to jump into the rush on occasion.
The Flyers signed Attard to a two-year, $1.7 million contract in July, and the hope is that he'll be ready to make a full-time leap to the NHL in the not-too-distant future. His time may be coming, even if it's not at the start of the 2023 campaign.
The Flyers will return to action Friday night at 7 p.m. ET against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden for their final road game of the preseason.
