Hakstol somewhat thrilled after tough loss to Knights

PHILADELPHIA >> You would have never known Dave Hakstol’s team had just lost for the third time in four games. The usually reserved head coach was happy, damn it, and eventually, he was going to let that be known.

Took a while, but finally, amid the dissection of a 1-0 home loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, Hakstol lost his cool ... in a good way.

“We played a hell of a game today,” Hakstol said. “You know, it stinks with nothing to show for it. But you know, you don’t get moral points for a loss. But we played a hell of a hockey game tonight. There’s not much there I want to change.”

The Flyers outshot the Knights 26-21, but goalie Marc-Andre Fleury took care of that edge by turning away a couple of breakaways and a last-minute point-blank shot by Claude Giroux with a fantastic glove save.

All well and good. What had Hakstol and several of his players humming after the game was that at least for this matinee at Wells Fargo Center, they shelved the terrible team defensive play which had hounded them in the early going.

“One of the things we wanted to do better was play better in our own building, and we did that,” said Hakstol, whose club was blown out by San Jose, 8-2, in the home opener Tuesday night. “We wanted to have a little bit better starts at the beginning of second and third periods, (and) we did that. We wanted to sustain that and keep our pace, stay on our toes, stay aggressive, keep pushing. We did all of those things.

“This is one of the nights I tip my hat to Fleury in net and they made a play late in a hockey game and it hurts like hell to walk out of this game with nothing.”

He might have been grinning through the pain.

••• Despite the Flyers playing impressive team defense and a tight-checking game against a team that specializes in just that, it was one bad puck mistake that spelled the difference on the scoreboard.

That came when usually sure-handed Sean Couturier botched a clearing pass attempt and lost coverage on Vegas’ Cody Eakin, who scored the game-winning goal with 1:25 left in regulation.

“Just got handcuffed,” Couturier said later. “The puck was kind of in my feet, or ... I don’t know. I couldn’t get a good grip of it, and fanned on it. I tried chipping it out and next thing you know I’m trying to find coverage and there was a guy open.”

Asked then if it was frustrating that his rare error came when it did, Couturier added, “Yeah, obviously.”

•••

NOTES >> Despite getting hit in the foot with a slapshot by Ivan Provorov in practice Friday, Travis Konecny was a bit of a surprise starter Saturday and made it through the entirety of the game. Said Hakstol: “He’s fine.” ... One player who did not look fine after the game was Scott Laughton, who fell into the boards hard but came back and played. “That was a high-speed play,” Hakstol said. “A lot of things go through your mind when you see player at that speed go into the end wall. He’s been, right from day one of camp, a real positive player for us and right now he’s playing hard, he’s playing fast, he’s effective. So it was good to see him come back to the bench.”