John Tortorella & Samuel Ersson explained how they exploited Devils' shortcomings

The New Jersey Devils are set to play the Philadelphia Flyers for the second time in three days. The past 30 days have been a tough stretch for the Devils. During that span, they've only accumulated a record of 4-6-3. In their previous outing against the Flyers, the Devils lost 4-2 and put themselves in a hole early with a slow start. It wasn't their worst outing of the season, but it was obvious that something wasn't clicking. It got to a point where Sheldon Keefe was forced to shuffle up the defensive pairings. Not having Nico Hischier in the lineup certainly didn't make things any easier.

The Flyers did a good job of slowing down the Devils' offensive attack, especially in the first period. To the Devils' credit, they were able to generate more looks on Samuel Ersson as the game progressed. At one point, they cut the Flyers' lead to just one. Unfortunately, once Scott Laughton scored the empty netter goal, the game was out of reach. Pucks and Pitchforks had the chance to speak with Flyers head coach John Tortorella postgame about his game plan against the Devils.

"We're just trying to defend the proper way. We talked about the third man, trying to check forward, and not let them have the neutral zone with speed... Most of the night, we did that, and when we didn't, we had some struggles."

John Tortorella, Flyers head coach

Even though Ersson had to make 31 saves on Monday, he was still satisfied with the overall effort in front of him. The Flyers had 14 more blocked shots than the Devils. He also elaborated on what it took to beat the Devils for the second time this season.

The Devils need to learn from Monday's loss to avoid the same result on Wednesday.

"I think we did a great job defensively. You got to be aware when they got those top two lines out there on the ice. I think we did a good job with that. If we keep doing our thing and blocking a lot of shots, that leads to our success."

Samuel Ersson, Flyers goalie

Unfortunately for the Devils, it looks like they're going to be without Hischier for a few weeks. His upper-body injury is now week-to-week. There's a good chance that Devils fans might not see him again until after the 4-Nations Face-Off. Similar to Jacob Markstrom and maybe Erik Haula. Without Hischier and Haula, the Devils' main issues will be depth, face-offs, and more defense among forwards. The Flyers exploited all of those issues in the previous matchup and took advantage of it.

After winning two straight games for the first time since December, the Devils are now back in the loss column. They have to dig deep and finish these few games strong before the 4-Nations break. Otherwise, they'll start to slip in the standings. The Hurricanes recently surpassed them for second place in the Metropolitan Division and with them adding two-time all-star Mikko Rantanen to the roster, it makes them even more dangerous.