Flyers

and tie the game right away. We just have to let the game come to us.”

“Sometimes when you try to do too much you get frustrated, and the plays aren’t there,” added Giroux’s mature, 25-year-old linemate Sean Couturier. “You just keep trying to force things and that’s when you get away from the good things. I thought we did a good job (on the trip) to refocus, relax and just get set.

“The season is still young,” Couturier added. “We got seven out of eight points but we have to keep going and climb in the standings.”

The Flyers played largely the same way those first 11 games, which is, they didn’t play well enough. Top line stalwarts Giroux and Couturier weren’t clicking like before, though secondline center Nolan Patrick showed signs of coming into his own as a blooming star.

The mostly youthful defense was a big problem, which in turn helped produce problematic goaltending. To make matters worse veteran guru Brian Elliott was accidentally waylaid Sunday during a practice drill by an energetic youth named Travis Konecny, forcing Elliott out for the game in Phoenix. And, of course, backup goalie Michal Neuvirth got healthy just in time to go on the road ... and get hurt again.

So third goalie Cal Pickard had to go for a second straight night in Glendale, Ariz., and he oversaw a win over an upstart Coyotes team that came in having won their previous five games. The Rick Tocchetcoached Coyotes come into Wells Fargo Center Thursday looking to make amends against the Flyers, who are commencing a five-game homestand and are in the process of making up for the way they played for most of the month of October.

In 10 of those games, they played from behind.