Jagr, Smith, Trocheck lead Panthers over Flyers, 7-1

It was over faster than you could say back to the drawing board. On Thursday, Philadelphia lost on the road to the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 in overtime.

It happened in a shocking 6:46. But it’s worth noting that the Flyers bailed on their head coach just a few games into the season a year ago and there is huge pressure for the winning ways to return to Philly sooner rather than later.

There were a bunch of reasons for the huge hole that the Flyers found themselves in: a couple of bad penalties in the neutral zone, blown coverages on the penalty kill, the Panthers flying out of the gates, but mostly…

Florida Panthers right wing Jaromir Jagr (68) is congratulated by teammates after he scored a goal during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers, Saturday, October 10, 2015 in Sunrise, Fla.

The Flyers have a re-match on Monday against the Panthers and they should come out flying in their home opener.

One minute later Jokinen joined the red-light brigade when Trocheck intercepted Mason’s horrendous clearing pass and flicked it toward the vacated net where the newly named alternate captain stuffed it home.

That was all for Mason, who was pulled in favor of Michal Neuvirth. “That’s the start everyone’s looking for, every game”, Jagr said. He gave up a fat rebound on Jokinen’s soft dump-in and Trocheck jammed it back past the netminder at 1:23.

“It couldnt have gone better”, said Smith about the Panthers opener. This time Nick Bjugstad’s long shot eluded Mason at the short-side post. Reilly Smith also scored two goals on the night.

Mason put most of the blame on himself.

Mason’s night ended there, but the Flyers continued stinking it up. “When your starting goaltender performs like that it puts everyone behind the eight-ball right away”. Right from the beginning, there’s not too much I can be proud of tonight.

“I’m real disappointed”, Hakstol said.

Mason and several other Flyers refused to blame the confusion on a failure to grasp new coach Dave Hakstol’s system of play.

“There’s nobody to put this game on but myself”. “Everyone realizes what kind of performance they brought tonight”. And now we fly back. Like, it would be surprising if they experience a stretch so damaging at any point again this season.

“I think we came out hot”, said Trocheck.

“That was a great start, something I can get used to, ” Luongo smiled. At the end of the day, it’s just one game.

“To have that many fans in a sold-out arena to see how loud they were, a change of pace, we definitely feed off that”.

“Yeah, ” Voracek said, “it’s a good thing we don’t have a week off”. Florida took its 4-0 lead into the first intermission and scored 33 seconds into the second period to go up 5-0.

Newcomer Reilly Smith celebrated his Panthers’ debut with two goals, and Vincent Trocheck, a Pennsylvania native, added a goal and three assists for a career-high four-point game.