from Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer,

In their worst period of the young season, the Flyers’ defense was non-existent as it gave goalie Brian Elliott no support. Their attack time was barely noticeable, and they fell into a 4-0 hole en route to a 7-1 loss to the arch-rival Pittsburgh Penguins.

“He’s been really good for us. Battling his butt off,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said of Elliott, the NHL’s No. 3 star of the week. “Not much of a chance tonight. Backdoor looks. Extra whacks. That’s stuff that just can’t happen. We’re going to work to get better at it and to fix it, but we left him hung out to dry."

Pittsburgh skated circles around the Flyers (5-5-1) in the opening 20 minutes and used a swarming forecheck to keep the visitors pinned in their own zone. As a result, the Penguins had a 16-6 shots domination in the period and got goals from Justin Schultz, Jared McCann, Dominik Simon, and Sidney Crosby.

“It was horrible. Embarrassing. We didn’t come out strong. They were ready and they gave it to us," center Sean Couturier said. “It’s tough winning games when you allow three, four goals in the first period. We’re going to have to learn from it. That’s twice in a row where we gave up [at least] three goals in the first period. We’ll have to be better."

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Game highlights are below.