In the wake of some ugly losses, the Philadelphia Flyers and visiting Anaheim Ducks are in equally cruddy moods heading into their matchup Saturday night.
The Flyers are coming off a 4-1 defeat to the Dallas Stars on Thursday in which they were outplayed badly for most of the contest. The team enters this matchup having lost four straight games and nine of its last 12 contests, dating back to mid-December.
"We don't play many bad games, even though our record is what it is," Flyers coach John Tortorella said after the setback against the Stars. "We have not played many bad games. We played bad (Thursday night)."
Morgan Frost scored the only goal for Philadelphia, which has scored only seven goals during its current four-game slide. Matvei Michkov (no points in 12 of his last 13 games) and Owen Tippett (no goals in eight straight games) are among the Flyers looking to get back on the scoresheet.
"I thought for the last stretch of games, even though we haven't been winning or getting points, I felt we've been playing pretty good," Frost said. "Good enough to get a point out of a game or win the game. (Thursday) wasn't the same. Just lacked energy throughout the game and couldn't string plays together. Just got to refresh the mind and come back next game and hopefully we can go on a streak here."
The Flyers certainly won't be getting any sympathy cards from the Ducks, who are mired in their own misery after an ugly 6-2 defeat in St. Louis to open their six-game road trip on Thursday.
"We didn't show up," Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said. "We had no jump, we had no response. St. Louis played it like a playoff game, and we just were flat."
Nikita Nesterenko and Sam Colangelo scored for the Ducks, who had been 4-1-1 in their previous six games. Lukas Dostal surrendered six goals on 22 shots before giving way to John Gibson, who set aside the final 12 shots by the Blues.
"I think we didn't come out ready to play," Colangelo said. "When you get down by a couple goals that early, it's really hard to win a hockey game."
The Ducks may once again be without leading scorer Troy Terry (33 points), who has missed the last two games following the birth of his son.
One player who will certainly be in the lineup for Anaheim is Cutter Gauthier. Philadelphia traded the disgruntled former first-round pick to the Ducks last January in exchange for defenseman Jamie Drysdale.
Both players made a limited impact in this season's first meeting between the teams -- a 3-1 Flyers win in Anaheim on Dec. 28 in which Frost tallied the go-ahead goal in the third period.
"You've got to score goals in this league to win," Anaheim forward Ryan Strome said after the first meeting. "We've got to try to generate a little bit more, have a little more confidence. Hopefully, we can find it here because it seems like we're doing a lot of good things. I don't want to get too down on the group."
