- Flyers fell 3-2 in overtime to the Hurricanes Monday at the Lenovo Center, dropping Game 2
- Tocchet kept the door open after the loss, leaning on his team’s late-season climb back from 3.8% playoff odds
- Read below for the full Tocchet quote, the play that ended Game 2, and what’s next in Philadelphia
Rick Tocchet isn’t ready to call this series.
The Flyers head coach lost Game 2 to the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 in overtime Monday night at the Lenovo Center, and Philadelphia heads home to Xfinity Mobile Arena down 2-0 in the second round. After the loss, Tocchet leaned on the same belief that carried his team into the playoffs in the first place.
“There is belief in the room. We’ve been dead before and we climbed out of the grave,” Tocchet said, via Greg Wyshynski of ESPN. “We keep hearing that we’re dead, but the guys won’t give up. That’s what I’m proud of.”
He’s not making it up. Back in March, the Flyers sat at 3.8% to make the playoffs in MoneyPuck’s model. Tocchet’s group went 18-7-1 the rest of the way to push past the field and lock in a postseason spot.
Game 2 had a similar shape early. Jamie Drysdale opened the scoring on the power play at 4:02 of the first period. Sean Couturier doubled the lead 39 seconds later, and Philadelphia looked like it had Carolina on the back foot.
Then the wheels started turning the other way. Nikolaj Ehlers cut into the lead with a power-play goal at 10:21 of the first. Seth Jarvis tied it midway through the third. Taylor Hall ended things at 18:54 of overtime, poking a rebound past Dan Vladar to push Carolina to 6-0 in the postseason.
Tocchet didn’t bury the effort. He thought his team was the better side in the extra period, even if the result said otherwise.
“I just thought we had more energy. We believe that we can compete with this team,” Tocchet said. “We have a sour taste after the game because I just didn’t feel we had the energy after Game 1 but I thought we had better energy tonight.”
The full game in three minutes:
The Flyers got to this round by finishing off the Penguins in six on Cam York’s overtime winner in Game 6. They’ll need another reset for Game 3, which goes Thursday at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The good news for Tocchet is the building. The bad news is that the Hurricanes haven’t lost yet.
