Flyers suffer their 1st loss of season

The Flyers made a handful of off-season moves - including the megadeal for elite defenseman Chris Pronger - designed to help them overtake the archrival Pittsburgh Penguins, who had eliminated them from the playoffs the last two years.

Well, the Pittsburgh Pursuit remains a work in progress.

Five Penguins scored goals last night as the defending Stanley Cup champions outlasted the Flyers, 5-4, at the Wachovia Center.

Goalie Ray Emery and defenseman Braydon Coburn had games they would like to forget as the Flyers (3-1) suffered their first loss and missed a chance to improve to 4-0 for the first time since 1995.

A Coburn turnover led to Tyler Kennedy's goal, which gave Pittsburgh (3-1) a 5-3 lead with 11 minutes, 23 seconds remaining. Earlier, Coburn, trying to make a clearing pass when he was near the goal line to the left of the net, inadvertently shot the puck off Emery's skate and into the goal to give the Penguins a 4-2 second-period lead.

A Jeff Carter turnover contributed to a breakaway goal by Jordan Staal - he split Coburn and Kimmo Timonen after taking a slick feed from Evgeni Malkin - for a first-period score.

"The last two games, we've absolutely gift-wrapped some of the best chances for the other team," Flyers coach John Stevens said. "We get some good momentum, and you work so hard to get a goal, and then you give one right back with some blatant turnovers. There's no question we have to clean it up."

The Flyers were trailing by 5-3 when Carter (four points) scored after the Flyers pulled Emery for an extra skater. That cut the deficit to one goal with 41 seconds left.

In the closing seconds, the Flyers stormed the goal, but a backhander by Danny Briere in front was blocked by Mark Eaton to quell their last chance. A few seconds later, Mike Richards barreled into goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and crashed into the net. Chaos ensued behind the goal with 1.2 seconds remaining as Pronger grabbed Chris Kunitz by the jersey, and Scott Hartnell and Kris Letang got into a corner scrum.

Afterward, Letang displayed a bloody right hand and claimed Hartnell had bitten him. Hartnell denied it, and the NHL figures to investigate and could suspend the Flyers winger if it determines that Letang's accusation is true.

Ah, just another friendly meeting of cross-state pals.

Last season, the Flyers coughed up a 3-0 lead and dropped a 5-3 decision to Pittsburgh in the sixth and final game of their Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Last night, Briere and Carter each scored two goals, but the Flyers surrendered five for the second consecutive game. They are 10-20-4 against Pittsburgh with Stevens as coach.

The Flyers outshot the Penguins, 34-25, and had 6 minutes, 8 seconds more power-play time than Pittsburgh. The Pens benefited from Sidney Crosby's winning 21 of 24 face-offs.

Stevens said he expected Coburn to bounce back from last night's performance.

"He's a big man, he's a pro . . . he's got to be better.  He knows that," Stevens said. "You talk about managing the puck all the time."

"It was just a couple of bad bounces, really, and maybe trying to do too much on one or two plays," Coburn said. "But I basically got outside of my game a little bit."

Emery was superb in wins at Carolina and New Jersey, but he has allowed five goals in each of the last two games - both at home.

"It's a situation where you can help a teammate out by making a save, and I didn't make them tonight," the goalie said.

Said Briere, who notched his 100th point as a Flyer: "It's one game. We can't panic, but we're certainly not happy completely about the way we played. In the last two games, we've just given up too many chances. But overall, I thought we probably deserved better tonight."

"You're not going to play 82 perfect games and get 82 wins," Richards said. "It's not great that we lost, but you put it behind us and move on."