PHILADELPHIA — Back at sea level, it looks like the Philadelphia Flyers left their energy in the Rocky Mountains.

Coming off a three-game road trip, with wins against two Stanley Cup contenders, the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche, you would have thought the Flyers would be amped to get back in front of the hometown faithful — especially since they had left town on a six-game slide.

But they came out with a lackluster effort, and the result was a 4-0 loss to the New York Islanders and goalie Ilya Sorokin. It marked the second time this season the Flyers were shut out and ended the team’s three-game point streak.

Had the Flyers won the game, they would have jumped ahead of the team from Long Island via tiebreakers into third in the Metropolitan Division, as each team would have had 59 points in 51 games.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau gave the Islanders a 1-0 lead in the first period while shorthanded against the unit with Trevor Zegras, Travis Konecny, Christian Dvorak, Bobby Brink and Jamie Drysdale.

Off the offensive-zone faceoff to start the power play, which was won by Dvorak back to Drysdale, the puck ended up on Brink’s stick down the boards. He tried to pass it to Dvorak, but it went to Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech, and he knocked it away.

Pageau picked up the loose puck and dumped it in off Ersson, who steered it into the right corner. Islanders forward Casey Cizikas was first on the puck, despite having Brink and Drysdale there, and fed it back to Pageau, who was skating alone through the slot. It is the fifth short-handed goal the Flyers have allowed this season.

Philly fell into a 2-0 hole in the second period when Mathew Barzal deflected a point shot past Ersson. The line of Dvorak, Konecny and Nikita Grebenkin got pinned in their own end with Dvorak out there for 2 minutes, 12 seconds, Konecny for 1:42 and Grebenkin for one minute.

Drysdale was also out there for 1:42, skating with Travis Sanheim for over a minute as the Islanders kept the puck to one side of the ice, with the Flyers unable to recover. In the end, Barzal pushed off Drysdale in front and moved into the slot to deflect the shot by Isaiah George.

Later in the second period, former Flyers defenseman and Sewell, N.J., native Tony DeAngelo made it 3-0 with a power-play goal.

Ahead of the goal, the Flyers had a chance to get on the board when Rasmus Ristolainen, activated before the game from injured reserve, got the puck to Owen Tippett while shorthanded. Tippett went one-on-one with DeAngelo, even making a between-the-legs move, but couldn’t get a shot off and sent it back to Emil Andrae at the point.

Andrae couldn’t control the pass, and the Islanders broke out three-on-two with Anthony Duclair carrying the puck up the ice. Duclair passed it back to Barzal on the right wing, and he found DeAngelo in the middle for the one-timer.

Pageau added another goal in the third on a pass by Maxim Tsyplakov. The forward got behind the defense after the puck came off the wall in the neutral zone, and fired one upstairs off the pass.

Philly had 21 shots, but only four from high-danger areas, according to Natural Stat Trick; two of those were on the power play. Sorokin entered the game with an 11-3-3 career record, 1.61 goals-against average and .944 save percentage against the Flyers.

Breakaways

Ersson started his fourth straight game for the first time since Feb. 8-27, when he went 3-0-1. With Ristolainen activated, defenseman Hunter McDonald was loaned to Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League.

Up next

The Flyers are on the road again for two games in two nights. First up, they see old teammate Egor Zamula and the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday before going to Boston to face the Bruins on Thursday.

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