Flyers Lose 8th Straight Despite Best Efforts as Spiral Continues

The Philadelphia Flyers looked as much like a real hockey team as they have all season, and despite an encouraging comeback that saw them erase a 2-0 deficit, they sputtered out, ultimately falling 3-2 to the Seattle Kraken in shootout fashion.

Kraken forward Bobby McMann opened the scoring on a pop fly in close proximity to Dan Vladar, swatting home on the power play on an opportunity generated by a Jack Studnicka tripping penalty.

The penalties and an overall lack of discipline in all facets have plagued the Flyers throughout their eight-game winless start, and Studnicka and Michael Bunting, players brought in by the Flyers to provide a spark, took penalties that led to goals in the last week.

Just under halfway through the second period, the Kraken doubled their lead to 2-0 on a Ville Ottavainen wrist shot through some heavy traffic, which was again produced by a series of unavoidable mistakes.

David Jiricek was forced to ice the puck on a long line change, and the Kraken proceeded to cycle the puck around the Flyers' defensive zone until Ottavainen's long-range shot through traffic beat Vladar.

After some taunting and back and forth between Trevor Zegras and Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer, the Flyers finally caught some life in the third period.

After diving to break up a 2-on-1, rookie defenseman Oliver Bonk raced up the left wing before dishing a backhand pass through the middle of the ice. Tyson Foerster dummied the pass, which allowed Christian Dvorak to slam home the puck at the back door for an easy Flyers goal to make it a 2-1 game.

Zegras would get his revenge on Grubauer a short time later, rifling a shot into the top left corner to tie the game after a tremendous solo rush from Travis Sanheim during a 4-on-4 sequence.

"It is what it is," Zegras sheepishly said of his kerfuffle with the Seattle goalie after the game, visibly dismayed with an eighth consecutive loss.

The Flyers squandered a promising overtime period, taking a lazy too many men penalty to put the Kraken on the power play for two minutes of the final 2:39.

Soon after, the shootout required 10 shooters to decide the victor, with Matvei Michkov the lone scorer with the Flyers.

Matty Beniers and Bobby McMann each scored for the Kraken despite some phenomenal efforts from Vladar, which included a marvelous glove save on Mackie Samoskevich.

"He's been solid every time he starts. There's a couple of bouncy goals this year that he's really upset about," Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet said of Vladar after the shootout loss. "We're not blaming the goalies. To be honest, they've been terrific for us this year."

With the loss, Vladar dropped to 0-3-1 on the season, though his GAA and save percentage improved to 4.21 and .875, respectively.

The Flyers will practice at 12 p.m. at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees, N.J. on Wednesday before facing the Detroit Red Wings in Detroit at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday night.