Farabee takes blame for costly penalty, felt Bennett ‘cheap-shotted' Flyers

VOORHEES, N.J. — Joel Farabee has been an accountable player in Philadelphia, going back to his 19-year-old rookie season.

As an unofficial leader now of a young core, Farabee faced the music Friday. The 24-year-old winger believed his retaliation late in the third period Thursday "ended up losing" the Flyers their game against the Panthers at the Wells Fargo Center.

In a 7-5 decision over the Flyers, Florida had a power play on its game-winning goal after Farabee was whistled for crosschecking Sam Bennett and roughing Gustav Forsling. Farabee was standing up for Travis Sanheim after the Flyers' top defenseman was hit into the boards by Bennett.

What also irked Farabee was a play at the end of the first period that left Travis Konecny shaken up. The Flyers' leading scorer was not happy with the officials after appearing to take a shot up high from Bennett.

"First things first, it's a really dumb penalty by me, I'll be the first to admit that," Farabee said following practice. "But at the same time, I think Bennett throws a vicious elbow at T.K. earlier in the game, then he crosschecks Sanny from behind, I get slashed right before that. I don't know, I don't want to get into what the refs do and don't do, but I think if you have some feel, I think that gets evened out and it's just you keep playing, it's two minutes left in the game."

Farabee didn't regret defending his teammates. The Flyers want that quality to be a staple in their locker room.

"Our No. 1 defenseman gets absolutely crushed from behind, I'm on the ice, I make it a point that when I'm on the ice and things like that happen, I usually try to step in," Farabee said. "It's a really dumb time of the game, but at the same time, I think Bennett got away with quite a bit in that game."

The Flyers rallied from a 3-0 deficit to grab a 5-4 lead in the third period. But they failed to finish the comeback. They gave up four power play goals and a 4-on-4 goal. Penalties burned them against a team that won the Stanley Cup last season and has one of the best power plays in the league.

"I don't want to condemn Joel, I don't," John Tortorella said Friday. "Because I know his heart's in the right place. But it's a power play that's rolling, we know it's rolling, we had no answer for it. And we just couldn't be sitting in the box. Same thing with T.K., I can't have T.K. in the box. That's what Florida does, they draw you into that."

Tortorella was reflective Friday, wanting to stay positive about the Flyers' togetherness and no-quit mentality. Before practice, he rewatched Bennett's hit on Sanheim.

"I don't think it's a really bad hit, I don't," the head coach said. "It's a shove and I think we also have to understand where the situation of the game is. Sometimes being a team that's strong is to be able to take hits, to be able to handle those type of situations. In such a long year, there are other opportunities if you think you need retribution."

Without being told, Farabee understood his decision was ill-timed.

"I've got to be a lot smarter," he said. "But I felt that when T.K. got elbowed, it's pretty ugly. That's our best forward and then he goes after our best D. It was really dumb on my part, but at the same time, I'm going to stick up for my teammates.

"I don't think at any point in my career I'll ever back down from a situation like that where a teammate gets cheap-shotted, in my opinion. I know I'm not the toughest guy out there, but at the same time, someone's going to hear about it."

Tortorella will work with a player that cares.

"I'd rather coach a Joel Farabee down, to maybe just fight another day, maybe retaliate another day, than having a team trying to force people to help one another out," he said.

Earlier this week, Tortorella mentioned that the Flyers have to learn how to play with a lead. And they felt that against the Panthers. Tortorella was disappointed by the Flyers hurting themselves. The 23-year-old Bobby Brink was hit with an interference penalty that led to Florida's game-tying 5-5 goal at 4-on-4.

"Young player, Bobby, has got to understand the situation," Tortorella said. "He got away with it once, attention was brought to it by the bench as far as the interference, same exact play happens and he does the same thing. There has got to be a little bit of common sense to come into play. It's a hard lesson for him and that's what kind of gets the ball rolling for us as far as us basically self-destructing."

Tortorella decided against going over the situational mistakes with the team Friday.

"I was going to have a meeting today about just some of the things that went on. I'm not going to," he said. "Because they know what happened. I'm going to focus on the good things. I thought we hung it out there. It was like the whole building was going to turn on us there when we were losing so quickly, and I thought we hung in there.

"That's what I love about the group. I'm proud of the way they handled themselves against a really good team. We blew up, self-inflicted — that's the frustrating part for me, it was self-inflicted. But we're going to learn our lessons from it and try to get better in those type of situations."

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