Playoff-hopeful Flyers continue dropping points to lottery-bound teams

With an opportunity to pick up an important two points, the Philadelphia Flyers instead came out on the wrong end of a 4-1 decision against the lowly Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday.

The club has posted a record of 4-2-5 through 11 February games to draw within four points of the Boston Bruins in the race for the second wild-card spot. However, four of those losses have come at the hands of teams like Carolina, Buffalo and Columbus, all lottery-bound.

"I don't think it's a question of guys' willingness," center Sean Couturier said after the loss, according to Sam Carchidi of The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Everyone wants to win and everyone wants to make the playoffs. Tonight's effort definitely wasn't acceptable, but we're in the playoff race. We can't get down on ourselves. We just have to focus on the next game now."

Philadelphia's next game is Thursday in Toronto, against a Maple Leafs team that's gone 3-17-2 in 2015. A win would seem to be in the cards, as long as the Flyers can buck this recent trend of playing down to the opposition.