WRAP: FLYERS FALL TO PANTHERS, 3-2

A poor first period and two mid-second period goals allowed including a shorthander by a player who hadn't scored all season left the Philadelphia Flyers in a 3-0 hole that proved too deep to escape in a 3-2 road loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday night. The Flyers got two goals back in the latter portion of the third period and had 2:02 with which to seek an equalizer but could not find it.

Jared McCann (5th goal of the season), Derek MacKenzie (shorthanded, 1st) and Jonathan Huberdeau (13th) scored for the Panthers, while Nick Bjugstad claimed his 10th and 11th assists of the season. James Reimer stopped 29 of 31 shots, carrying a shutout for 52-plus minutes before the Flyers finally solved him.

Scott Laughton (6th goal of the season) and Sean Couturier (17th) scored for the Flyers. Travis Konecny (7th assist), Michael Raffl (5th), Shayne Gostisbehere (21st) and Claude Giroux (30th) picked up assists during the Flyers' late-game comeback bid. Brian Elliott stopped 24 of 27 shots.

The Flyers went 0-for-4 on the power play while allowing their fifth opposing shorthanded goal of the season. On the bright side, the Flyers went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill including a lengthy 5-on-3 kill (1:21) early in the first period after Gostisbehere was called for interference on Vincent Trocheck and then Elliott was called for tripping Trocheck.

For much of the game, the Flyers were their own worst enemies. They were guilty of 17 charged giveaways to seven for Florida. Having to kill off three first period penalties also contributed to a 13-5 shot disadvantage in the first period.

The first Florida goal, scored at the 6:43 mark of the first period, was an atrocious one to give up in today's NHL. McCann received a pass in the neutral zone, stickhandled around Wayne Simmonds to gain the blueline. From about 35 feet from the net over the middle, McCann's wrist shot went off the top of Elliott's right pad and then flew upstairs into the net. Bjugstad and Mike Matheson got the assists.

After Nolan Patrick, who took a pair of stick-related infractions in the third period of Saturday's game in Columbus, received a high-sticking minor in the latter portion of the first period, he saw relatively little ice time for much of the rest of the game. Laughton moved up in the lineup and Patrick moved down. The rookie center finished with 8:03 of ice time (5:48 at even strength, 2:15 on the second power play unit).

The Flyers deficit grew to 2-0 at 9:19 of the second period on a back-breaking shorthanded goal. After Giroux had the puck poked past him and regained by Colton Sceviour, the Panthers broke out on a counter attack. Sceviour made a cross-ice feed to MacKenzie near the left post and the play was finished off for MacKenzie's first goal of the year. Elliott had no shot at stopping this one.

Trying to spark his team, Raffl fought Alex Petrovic at 11:31 and got the worse of things. However, the Flyers got another power play chance out of it as Petrovic received a roughing minor on top of the fighting major.

At 13:52 of the middle frame, the Panthers opened up a commanding 3-0 lead. Huberdeau's shot from the top of the right circle deflected off Radko Gudas' stick and beat Elliott. Bjugstad and Barkov collected the apples.

Second period shots were 10-6 in the Flyers' favor but three failed power plays, the MacKenzie shorthander and ending the period down by three rendered a shot on goal advantage to be utterly meaningless.

The Flyers held a 16-8 shot edge in the third period but did not get back within two goals until they finally caught a break at the 12:28 mark as they took advantage of a Florida player breaking his stick and turning it into a counter attack with speed. Konecny carried the puck and passed it to Raffl. The Austrian veteran then made a drop pass to Laughton. From about 25 feet out, Laughton snapped off a shot that beat Reimer to narrow the gap to 3-1. The assists went to Raffl and Konecny.

The Flyers got the deficit down to 3-2 at 17:58. Receiving a pass from Giroux, South Florida native Gostisbehere one-timed a left point shot at the net with traffic in front. Couturier tipped it home from the slot. The assists were correctly credited to Gostisbehere and Giroux after the play was erroneously initially scored as a goal for Jakub Voracek with no assist to Gostisbehere.

That was as close as the Flyers got. Florida hung on to win by one goal.

Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol heavily shortened his bench in the front end of the back-to-back games. This was especially true on the blueline, partly due to special teams play and partially because the team was playing catch-up most of the night.

The first pairing of Ivan Provorov (26:36 TOI, 31 shifts, six shots on goal on six attempts, five blocks, two credited hits, two charged giveaways) and Gostisbehere (24:15 TOI, 29 shifts, two shots on goal, 4 missed nets, 1 shot attempt blocked, one credited hit and one credited takeaway) logged heavy duty ice time.

From there, it dropped to Andrew MacDonald's 18:48 TOI on 29 shifts, Gudas' 14:46, Travis Sanheim's 14:42 and Robert Hägg's 13:51. Up front, Voracek, Couturier, Giroux, Simmonds and Giroux all logged 20-plus minutes of ice time and Valtteri Filppula played 17:26. From there, no other Flyers forwards played as much as 13 minutes.

The Flyers go right back at it on Friday night. Their road trip concludes with a meeting against the President's Trophy race leading Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena.

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GAME 38 PREVIEW: FLYERS @ LIGHTNING

Playing their final game of what has been a disappointing 2017 calendar year, Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (15-14-8) conclude a two-game trip through the Sunshine State as they take on Jon Cooper's Tampa Bay Lighting (27-7-2). Game time is 7:30 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on NBCSNP.

This is the first of three meetings between the teams this season, and the first of two in Tampa. They will rematch on Jan. 25 in Philadelphia and on the afternoon of March 3 back in Tampa.

Last season, the Flyers went 1-2-0 against the Bolts. The lone win came on home ice on a snow Jan. 7 afternoon as a four-goal outburst in the second period (Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier, Michael Raffl and ex-Bolt defenseman Radko Gudas) and 24 saves by Michal Neuvirth lifted the Flyers to a 4-2 victory.

FLYERS OUTLOOK

The Flyers have a 7-7-4 road record entering Friday's game. They find themselves needing a win against arguably the NHL's top team to avoid a winless four-game road trip (currently 0-2-1) bookending the Christmas break.

On Tuesday, the Flyers activated Neuvirth from the injured reserve list. He might get his first start in goal since Nov. 28 against San Jose. It also remains to be seen if the in-game lineup changes in Sunrise will carry over into Friday's game. The starting lines on Thursday were the same as last Saturday's game in Columbus with one exception: Jordan Weal re-entered the lineup (12:46 TOI including 2:14 on PP2) while Jori Lehterä was a healthy scratch.

Veteran defenseman Brandon Manning (right hand injury) remains on IR but resumed skating prior to the pre-Christmas portion of the current road trip.

Entering Thursday's game, the Flyers have scored 101 goals (21st in the NHL) but yielded 103 (tied for 12th fewest in the NHL). At five-on-five, Philly has scored just 63 goals (23rd in the NHL) and yielded 55 (3rd fewest in the NHL).

On the power play, the Flyers rank tied for 18th at 18.9 percent (24-for-127) with five shorthanded goals yielded. On the penalty kill, the Flyers rank 29th (91-for-118, 77.1 percent). Scott Laughton's shorthanded goal in the home opener against Washington still stands as the lone shorthander for the Flyers to date this season.

LIGHTNING OUTLOOK

Leading the President's Trophy race, the Lightning have been all but unbeatable on home ice this season, bringing a 16-2-1 mark at Amalie Arena (11-5-1 on the road) into Friday's tilt. Overall, the club has won three in a row and nine of its last 10 tilts. Friday's game concludes a four-game homestand.

On Thursday night, the Lightning skated to a 3-1 home win against the Montreal Canadiens. Veteran scoring star Steven Stamkos collected his 14th and 15th goals of the season on even strength and power play tallies while young center Brayden Point got his 15th. A first period power play goal by Montreal's Brendan Gallagher was the only puck that got past Andrei Vasilevskiy (31 saves).

Nikita Kucherov, who assisted on the first Stamkos goal, currently leads both the Art Ross Trophy (52 points) and Rocket Richard Trophy (24 goals) races. Stamkos is fourth in the Art Ross race with 47 points. Overall, the Bolts have four players with 15 or more goals and 30 or more points, including Point (33 points) and Vladislav Namestnikov (15 goals, 32 points), and five in double-digit goals, including Yanni Gourde's 11 goals. Victor Hedman paces the Tampa blueline with 26 points (four goals, 22 assists) and a plus-18 rating at even strength.

In goal, Vasilevskiy has started 30 of the team's 36 games to date. The young Russian goalie has roared out to a 24-5-1 record, 2.09 GAA, .934 save percentage and four shutotuts.

On the injury front, veteran defenseman Anton Strålman is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Veteran forward Ryan Callahan (right arm) is on injured reserve.

As befitting a team with their gaudy record, the Lightning enter Friday's game as the NHL's highest-scoring team (134 goals, 3.72 goals per game) and third-hardest to score against (87 goals yielded, 2.42 GAA). At five-on-five, Tampa is third in the NHL with 81 goals and have taken over from the Flyers with the fewest opposing goals (52) at full strength.

On the power play, Tampa paces the NHL with a robust 25.7 percent (35-for-136) success rate. They've given up two opposing shorthanded goals. The penalty kill has been one of the team's few vulnerabilities this season, clocking in at 79.0 percent efficiency (94-for-119, ranked tied for 23rd). However, Tampa has also scored five shorthanded goals this season.

PROJECTED LINEUPS

FLYERS

28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 11 Travis Konecny
12 Michael Raffl - 51 Valtteri Filppula - 93 Jakub Voracek
22 Dale Weise - 19 Nolan Patrick - 17 Wayne Simmonds
15 Jori Lehterä- 21 Scott Laughton - 40 Jordan Weal

9 Ivan Provorov - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
47 Andrew MacDonald - 8 Robert Hägg
23 Brandon Manning - 3 Radko Gudas

37 Brian Elliott
[30 Michal Neuvirth]

Scratches: 6 Travis Sanheim (healthy), 20 Taylor Leier (healthy), 39 Mark Alt (healthy).

LIGHTNING

90 Vladislav Namestnikov - 91 Steven Stamkos - 86 Nikita Kucherov
18 Ondrej Palat - 21 Brayden Point - 9 Tyler Johnson
17 Alex Killorn - 37 Yanni Gourde - 19 Cory Conacher
14 Chris Kunitz - 13 Cedric Paquette - 23 J.T. Brown​

77 Victor Hedman - 59 Jake Dotchin
98 Mikhail Sergachev - 62 Andrej Sustr
55 Braydon Coburn - 5 Dan Girardi​

88 Andrei Vasilevskiy / 31 Peter Budaj​

Scratches: Slater Koekkoek (healthy), Anton Strålman (day-to-day, upper body), Ryan Callahan (IR, right arm).

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WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS UPDATE

Two Flyers prospects were in preliminary action at the 2017-18 World Junior Championships in Buffalo on Thursday:

* Russia downed Switzerland, 5-2. Flyers 2016 first round pick German Rubtsov played a significantly better game than he did in Russia's opening game loss to the Czech Republic, when he set up a pair of third period goals in a too-little-too-late comeback bid. Rubtsov played a strong two-way game in 19:18 of ice time, set up three high-quality scoring chances for teammates and had one of his own. However, on this day, he ended up without a point after his two assists in the opener.

* Sweden defeated the Czech Republic, 3-1. Defenseman Linus Högberg continued to be used very sparingly on the deep Junior Crowns blueline, playing just 6:11 for the game including a single shift of 24 seconds in the third period.

In other action on Thursday, there was a big upset at defending gold medalist Team USA dropped a 3-2 regulation decision to Slovakia decided by a Samuel Bucek goal with 2:08 remaining in regulation. Bucek figured in all three Slovakian goals. Goalie Roman Durny turned back 43 of 45 shots in a game where Team USA held a 45-25 shot edge.

The other outcome on Thursday was no surprise, as Finland downed Denmark, 4-1; avenging an upset loss last year at the hands of the Danes. Henri Jokiharju and Juuso Välimäki had a goal and an assist apiece for the Finns, while defenseman Miro Heiskanen chipped in a pair of helpers.

On Friday at noon, Rubtsov and Russia take on Maksim Sushko and Team Belarus. The game's marquee matchup, however, is a 3 p.m. outdoor showdown at New Era Field (home of the NFL's Buffalo Bills) between Team USA and Team Canada. Carter Hart will be in goal for Canada.

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PROSPECT UPDATES: CHL AND NCAA

* OHL: In their first game back from the Christmas break, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds extended their winning streak to 21 games with a 4-1 road win over the Saginaw Spirit. Flyers 2017 first round pick Morgan Frost scored an even strength third-period goal (20th of the season) to extend his point streak to 12 straight games.

Over his last 21 games, Frost has 42 points (16 goals, 26 assists). During his current 11-game point streak, the 18-year-old center has posted nine goals, 19 assists and 28 points. Updated season stats: 34 games played, 20 goals (tied for 6th in the OHL), 36 assists (2nd), 56 points (tied for 2nd), plus-43 (1st).

The Greyhounds (30-3-2) will shoot for a 22-game winning streak on Friday night when they host the Flint Firebirds (11-20-3). On Saturday, the Guelph Storm (18-13-3) pays a visit to the Soo.

* OHL: The visiting Kitchener Rangers downed the Owen Sound Attack, 5-1, on Thursday night. Connor Bunnaman had a goal and an assist while also going 7-for-7 on faceoffs. Bunnaman has an active six-game point streak (two goals, seven assists, nine points) to move over a point-per-game on the season (16 goals, 34 points in 32 games). Kitchener hosts the Erie Otters on Friday night.

* OHL: Isaac Ratcliffe scored a pair of goals as the Guelph Storm downed the visiting Peterborough Petes, 3-1, on Thursday night. For the season, the Flyers' 2017 second round pick is up to 16 goals and 30 points in 33 games. Guelph is idle on Friday before taking on the Greyhounds on Saturday.

* OHL: Matthew Strome had a goal and an assist and was minus-one in the Hamilton Bulldogs' 8-4 home win over the Mississauga Steelheads on Thursday. Strome now has a six-game point streak (four goals, four assists, eight points) and points in seven of his last eight games. For the season, Strome has 18 goals and 37 points in 33 games. Hamilton is idle on Friday before hosting the Kingston Frontenacs on Saturday.

* OHL: The Sarnia Sting got blanked, 5-0, by the visiting Windsor Spitfires on Thursday. Anthony Salinitri had five shots on goal and won eight of nine faceoffs but finished the game at minus-two for Sarnia. For the season, he has 15 goals and 33 points in 36 games. The Sting are idle on Friday and Saturday before a Sunday afternoon home game against the London Knights.

* QMJHL: Flyers 2016 second-round pick Pascal Laberge made his debut for the Quebec Remparts against his former team, the Victoriaville Tigres (with whom Laberge parted with some hard feelings). The host Tigres earned a 6-2 win despite being outshot, 26-16. Laberge did not record a point, attempted one shot that missed the net, and was 3-for-9 on faceoffs. In 31 games with the Tigres this season, Laberge posted six goals and 20 points. Quebec is idle on Friday before hosting the Baie-Comeau Drakkar on Saturday.

* NCAA: In their first game back from the Christmas break, Western Michigan dispatched host Bowling Green, 5-2. A four-goal outburst in the first period ended any suspense early. Flyers 2016 second-round pick Wade Allison collected a power play tally for his 15th goal of the season as well as a pair of assists. Allison is tied for 2nd in the NCAA in goal-scoring and his 1.40 points per-game-average (28 points in 20 games) ranks tied for 7th nationally. Western Michigan now faces another lengthy schedule hiatus. The Broncos do not play again until Jan. 12 and 13 when they play back-to-back road games against St. Cloud state.

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