Minus an ill Mike Richards, Flyers fall to Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. - With captain Mike Richards sidelined by the flu, the Flyers needed someone - anyone - to pick up the slack Friday night at the reverberating RBC Center.

It came from two unlikely sources: fourth-line center Blair Betts, who scored his first goal in 45 games, and Braydon Coburn, a defenseman who notched his second goal of the season and first in 15 games.

But those heroics were overshadowed by Erik Cole's late game-winner, enabling the Carolina Hurricanes to celebrate Rod Brind'Amour Night with an exciting, 3-2 victory.

The win ended years of frustration for the 'Canes. The Flyers had been 15-0-3 against Carolina, including five consecutive wins, since 2006.

With 5 minutes, 11 seconds remaining, Coburn tied it at 2 as he scored on a scramble in front while Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell did some grunt work in front of goalie Cam Ward.

But Cole, whom the Flyers coveted before acquiring Kris Versteeg on Monday, scored his 17th goal of the season after he took a pass from Jussi Jokinen and finished a two-on-one with 3:03 left.

"It was a pretty chippy, gritty game, kind of like a playoff game," Coburn said. "Those are the games we have to get used to. . . . It was a good effort to get back in the game but obviously not what we wanted to do to give up a goal late."

Betts scored a shorthanded goal and keyed a penalty-killing unit that stopped a five-on-three Carolina power play for a full two minutes. But he split open his left ring finger while blocking a shot on the penalty kill and did not play in the final period.

With 15:04 left, goalie Sergei Bobrovsky kept the Flyers within 2-1 with a key save against Jokinen in front, and he later stopped Cole as he tried to finish a two-on-one.

Carolina, fighting for a playoff spot, is 19-0 when it takes a lead into the third period. The Eastern Conference-leading Flyers are 1-12-2 when trailing after two.

The Flyers were down by 2-1 and on the power play when they thought they got the equalizer off the stick of Matt Carle with 7:32 remaining in the second period.

Carle was staring at a wide-open net while Ward was sprawled on the ice. But as the Flyers defenseman lifted a backhander toward the twine, a prone Ward snapped his glove into the air and made one of the season's best saves, keeping the 'Canes in front.

With 2:59 left in the second period, Carolina had a five-on-three power play because of penalties against Jody Shelley (holding) and Sean O'Donnell (roughing). But the penalty-killing unit, led by Betts, held off the Hurricanes and limited them to just a handful of chances.

Early in the period, Betts had scored a shorthanded goal to get the Flyers within 2-1.

At the start of the game, on a night when Brind'Amour's No. 17 Hurricanes jersey was retired, it was difficult to tell whether Carolina benefited more from the pregame inspiration or from Richards' absence.

The Hurricanes scored two goals in the first 6:37.

Richards skated in the pregame warm-ups - all the Flyers wore No. 17 jerseys to honor Brind'Amour - but was a late scratch. He had played in 169 consecutive games since 2009.

Shelley was in the press box and had to rush down to the locker room and join his team.

"That was tough," coach Peter Laviolette said. "We had to go back and get the lineup sheet; it happened that quickly.

"We had to go back and get it. We were juggling, and maybe that had something to do with the first five, 10 minutes."

"I'm not making excuses," Laviolette said. "We need to be better, but we were juggling a little bit."

In each of their last two games, one of the Flyers' high-scoring players has been sidelined (Ville Leino on Wednesday, Richards on Friday), but winger Nik Zherdev still had not been inserted into the lineup - even though he had 15 goals in 47 games.

Zherdev's absence the last two games indicates how deep he is in Laviolette's doghouse, and the winger's days with the Flyers may be numbered.

The arena was filled with mostly red-clad Hurricanes jerseys, but there also were several-hundred orange Flyers jerseys in the sellout crowd, which saluted Brind'Amour during a stirring pregame tribute.

"It looks like it," Brind'Amour said after the first period, when asked whether the 'Canes were charged up because of the opening ceremony. "Don't jinx it now."

Chad LaRose tipped in a drive by Joe Corvo 4:12 into the game, giving Carolina a 1-0 lead. Just 2:25 later, Bobrovsky allowed Jeff Skinner's left-circle drive to bounce off him and go into the net. Skinner and Bobrovsky are among the NHL's top rookie-of-the-year candidates.

Carolina controlled the first period as the Flyers, with their lines shuffled because of Richards' absence, seemed out of sync.

Early on, the Flyers had Briere centering Leino and Andreas Nodl, Jeff Carter centering Versteeg and Dan Carcillo, and Claude Giroux centering James van Riemsdyk and Hartnell.