Jean TortorellaTuesday’s postgame press conference lasted 25 seconds.

Have you seen enough progress in the game tonight, a 6-4 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes? “No,” replied the Flyers coach.

It was good to see guys like Morgane Givre And Owen Tippettwho had difficulty joining the board of directors? “Yeah.”

What didn’t you like about the game? “I’m not going to dissect it.”

What do you think of Aleksei Kolosov’s play? “All right.”

After 13 games, countless video sessions and on-ice drills, the grizzled coach may have seen enough.

The Flyers (4-8-1) are officially in the NHL basement, tied with the Nashville Predators with nine points as of Wednesday morning. The positive side is that they only had one more win at this level last season (5-7-1), but the atmosphere is much different now. Although the penalty kill is better (79.5 to 88.9%) and the power play is exponentially better (8.9 to 20%), the Flyers struggle to score and prevent the other team from scoring , especially at five against five.

But watching Tortorella’s first short presser of the season, one of his trademarks when his team is struggling, was his frustration justified?

Two reasons why Tortorella’s squeezer was small and angry

Wasting a point late

The Flyers were just seconds away from snatching an important point to begin their three-game road trip – 31 seconds to be exact. But the Hurricanes were probably expected to pull out a win. After all, they only suffered two losses in their first 10 games and were on a six-game stretch.

All the Flyers had to do was weather the storm, but they found themselves stuck facing a torrent. After about 2 minutes, the Hurricanes beat the Flyers and kept Morgan Frost’s five-man unit, Bobby BrinkTyson Foerster, Travis Sanheimand Rasmus Ristolainen on the ice. They were penned in and faced a swirling attack that resulted in five shot attempts, including Martin Necas’ game-winning goal.

» LEARN MORE: Aleksei Kolosov wanted a chance in the NHL. With Sam Ersson injured, he has it.

“I thought I missed another open net,” Frost said of his first goal of the season that tied it 3-3. “…At the same time, without really thinking about it at the moment, I think they could have done a much better job in that last shift where they scored the goal. So that’s what I’m thinking about right now.

A few more shots…

Once again, the Flyers struggled to find the net. After taking 10 shots on goal in the first period – two more than the Hurricanes – they had just six for the rest of the game. But at least they scored on half of them.

It shouldn’t shock anyone that Carolina threw 34 shots at Kolosov; he entered the night leading the NHL in shots per game (35.9). The Flyers were ranked 30th at 25.7. – now at 24.9 – and as noted above, that’s way down from last season.

To make matters worse on Tuesday, according to Natural Stat Trickthe Flyers were outscored 86-36 with only eight chances in the third period. It didn’t seem like the ice was tilted that much during the 60 minutes, but the stats don’t lie.

Two reasons why Tortorella’s presser was hard

Forechecking was better

Was the forecheck perfect? No, but for weeks the Flyers have had trouble finding him at any point. The starting line of Sean CouturierFoerster and Matvei Mishkov set the tone on Tuesday.

The first line’s job is to drive the puck deep and either score or take a deep faceoff into the opponent’s zone. The trio and the new defensive duo composed of Travis Sanheim and Jamie Drysdale started strong. They created a turnover, put deep pressure on the Hurricanes and got a shot on goal from Foerster.

“I think we went to their level,” Tippett said. Obviously, they’re a good home team and they play fast. It’s one of those things where we’re not playing on our toes and we’re not ready. This can deteriorate quite quickly. So, like I said, it’s a pretty (expletive) way to lose, but I think we’ve made good progress.

As the night progressed, the waves came, but the best example of forechecking work was on Travis Konecnythe second goal of. The winger put pressure on Hurricanes defenseman Jalen Chatfield, causing him to turn the puck over leading to the goal. When the forecheck is in progress, it works.

“I think everyone as a group is trying to get going,” Konecny ​​said. “You know, there were some good things to build on tonight, and it’s just a shame. We were looking for the two points and we didn’t get any.

The good news is that Konecny, Frost and Tippett scored – three guys who need to step up for the Flyers to turn things around.

Kolosov didn’t look bad

The Flyers goaltender continues to try to find his footing, but in his second NHL start, Kolosov was actually “OK,” as Tortorella put it.

Sure, the young Belarusian allowed five goals, but aside from Eric Robinson’s goal – the Hurricanes forward is from Bellmawr and played at Gloucester Catholic – the rest are questionable as to who was responsible.

Kolosov spoke after his shift Saturday about how he was still learning to handle the net-front traffic that is prevalent in the NHL and not often used in the Kontinental Hockey League. He appeared to be sharp on Tuesday, especially when rushing pucks up front.

Jackson Blake made it 1-1 after being left alone in front when Egor Zamula went behind the net and the Flyers had two players below the goal line on passer Jack Drury. I can’t really blame Kolosov for that one when a guy is left wide open – and most coaches will tell you to leave a guy alone behind the net because, generally speaking, they don’t score from there- down.

Jordan Martinook made it 3-1 for Carolina after being badly tied up by Emil Andrae up front. The forward then collected the loose puck after Kolosov made a good save. On Jack Roslovic’s 4-3 goal, Kolosov made a good initial save on a Sebastian Aho breakaway but Roslovic was again left alone to clean up the rebound. And on Martin Necas’ winning goal, on a long shift, Sanheim failed to clear the puck from the front before the forward pounced.

Every guard is going to let in a bad one here and there. But when a team struggles to tickle the string the other way, it gets amplified. For what it’s worth, the 22-year-old goalkeeper made seven saves on 11 very dangerous shots.

And look at this heat map. He didn’t have much luck.