DENVER - Barring a trade, the Flyers will be Team Patchwork for at least the next month.

And if last night is any indication, it could be a wild stretch.

Colorado took a 2-0 lead in the first 51/2 minutes, eventually sent shelled goalie Ray Emery to the bench, and outlasted the slumping Flyers, 5-4, at the Pepsi Center.

Trailing by 5-2, the Flyers dominated the third period - they outshot the Avs, 19-4 - and got to within 5-4 on goals by Danny Briere and Jeff Carter.

Any chance the Flyers had at a comeback was virtually ruined when Scott Hartnell was charged with goalie interference with 2 minutes, 9 seconds left.

David Jones scored two goals and Paul Stastny notched three points as the Avalanche handed the Flyers their third straight loss. They are 1-3 on a road trip filled with injuries, losses and long periods of listless play.

Emery allowed four goals on 17 shots and was relieved by Brian Boucher with 10:54 left in the second period.

Briere and Carter had two goals apiece.

"Right off the bat, you can't spot them a two-goal lead," Briere said. "Sometimes, things are not going your way and you have to find something to reverse the tide. We're in a little slump right now, and you have to dig a little deeper and do a little more for your teammates."

Before they overwhelmed the Avs in the last period - Braydon Coburn twice fired wide on a good chances in the waning moments - the Flyers played two awful periods.

Briere said the team needs to strive for more consistency.

"When we were on our little streak there, that's what we were so good at," he said of the Flyers' seven wins in an eight-game span. "Not every game we scored five or six goals, but it seemed when we didn't get much going, we were good defensively. That's the difference right now."

The Avs scored three straight second-period goals to take a 5-2 lead into the final 20 minutes.

"Unfortunately, you have to play 60 minutes; that's the issue right now," said coach John Stevens, who gave the players a stern speech between the second and third periods. "We talked after the Phoenix game. It's the little things that make a big difference; it's winning the puck battles and working to support the puck. There was a big stretch we didn't do that and we let the game get away from us.

"If you have to score six goals to win a hockey game, you're not going to win many games. Clearly, we got on our heels. We tried like crazy at the end. If we would have played the whole game like we did at the end, we wouldn't have been in that situation."

Defenseman Chris Pronger agreed. "The way we played at the end is how we have to play each and every period," he said.

Emery absorbed some of the blame for the loss.

"I had to make a couple of saves in the first," he said, "and that kind of took the wind out of us a little bit. I need to do better."

Injuries have sidelined four of the Flyers' top 12 forwards, scrambling the chemistry and causing an influx of players from the AHL's Adirondack Phantoms.

Captain Mike Richards acknowledged that Stevens blasted the team before the last period.

"His message was loud and clear," he said. "I don't think we needed to say much more. We knew we could play better. We knew we had to play with desperation."

Contact staff writer Sam Carchidi at 215-854-5181 or scarchidi@phillynews.com.