NEWARK - Devils right wing Jaromir Jagr sat at his locker looking totally disgusted.

His game jersey was off, but his skates were still on 20 minutes after a 3-2 Devils overtime loss to the Flyers on Tuesday night, their third setback in a row.

He'd already answered a few media questions in a very revealing way, but unlike teammates who were there and gone, he stayed right there at his locker sitting and staring into space with a scowl on his face for at least another 10 minutes.

Still in the NHL at age 41 because he still has a portion of the talent that made him an all-time great and because he still loves the competition, Jagr is sick and tired of seeing his Devils lose games late that could have and should have been all but locked up early.

"The Flyers didn’t play very well in the first period and we didn’t take advantage of it scoring only one goal,” Jagr said. “If we score three goals, game over.”

Jagr had done his homework for Tuesday night's opponent. He figured the Flyers would show up tired 12 days into a roadtrip that went from Edmonton to Vancouver to Calgary to Colorado to Phoenix to Jersey, and he was right.

Even though the Flyers won all those games but one, the Devils were all over them early, scoring 57 seconds in when Jagr made a great pass to set up Adam Henrique, and then dominating play for another 15 or so minutes.

"They were kind of dead after the big roadtrip that they had,” Jagr said. “We just didn't take advantage of it. It’s not the first time we didn’t do it. It’s kind of frustrating.”

The Devils held onto their 1-0 lead until the third, but by then the Flyers had found some energy. Quickly, the Devils found themselves down 2-1, and then after pulling a rabbit out of their hats when Michael Ryder scored a shorthanded goal with goalie Martin Brodeur pulled at 19:30 of the third, the Devils lost 1:50 into overtime on a goal by Brayden Schenn.

Been there, done that.

"It happened against Columbus two weeks ago and other games, too," Jagr said with frustration in his voice. “When you lose those points, it might be the difference between playoffs and no playoffs. We need to learn. I’m seeing mistakes over and over and over.”

His teammates had to agree.

“We got the early one,” Henrique said. “We just couldn’t find a way to get the second and third one to kind of get up and put them behind us a little more. It would have been good.

"You want to take advantage when you can. You want to catch them when they don’t have their legs going, and we kind of just were sitting on the one (goal). They just got momentum slowly."

Defenseman Mark Fayne, who took a third-period penalty that led to the Flyers’ first goal, suggested the Devils play better hockey when they’re not leading.

"It almost seems we're so used to playing in one-goal games that once we get up, we almost let off,” Fayne said. “Not let off, but we don’t have the same urgency as we do when we’re down or playing even.

“So we just have to get in our minds that we’re down the whole time and just keep going. Because once we move off and let them start moving it, it’s when they get confident and they start putting them in.”

Jagr, by the way, is right about these lost points potentially sending the Devils to the golf courses after 82 games for the second season in a row.

They salvaged a point on Tuesday, but gave up two to the Flyers, who now are five ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division. Meantime, they still trail Washington by three for what for now is the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

"At least we got one point, but we made mistakes again," said Jagr, whose assist moved him into a tie with former Pittsburgh teammate Mario Lemieux for seventh on the NHL's all-time scoring list. "We just let them hang around there and slowly they started playing better. It's not the first time it's happened. We need to learn."