The Philadelphia Flyers (37-24-12) continue to surge as they took down the Dallas Stars (44-18-12), 2-1, in an overtime thriller on Sunday night.
The Flyers are now 12-4-1 since the Olympic break and 8-1-1 in their last 10 games. The victory puts Philadelphia just two points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for third in the Metropolitan Division and two points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second Wild Card spot in the East.
“Obviously it’s good. We feel good about our group,” said Flyers captain Sean Couturier about the team’s recent success. “But we’re not thinking, you know, we’re staying in the moment. Thinking one game at a time. You know, if we think too far ahead or in the past, I don’t think we’ll advance. So we’ve just got to take it one game a time. Get as many wins as we can and go from there.”
The Flyers came out of the gate with a strong defensive effort against one of the league’s top offensive clubs in the Stars. They held Dallas to just 6 shots, and a few were some grade-A chances that were fended off by Sam Ersson, who was spectacular in this game.
Just four shots on goal were fired by the home team, however, in the first 20 minutes.
The Flyers’ second period effort saw much more juice offensively as they racked up 13 shots on goal. Travis Konecny got Philadelphia on the board first with a power play marker just before the halfway mark of regulation. Matvei Michkov’s pass attempt to Christian Dvorak bounced off a Dallas skate to Konecny, who wrapped home his 26th goal of the season.
The Flyers would have another power play near the end of the second period but it would be the Stars who capitalized on it. Denver Barkey skated out of the offensive zone with the puck and almost got crossed up with Owen Tippett before sending a bad pass back to Jamie Drysdale. Drysdale then misplayed the puck off the boards and Arttu Hyry sniped one high glove on Ersson for his first NHL tally.
The Flyers really held down the fort defensively in the third as a result. The Stars only had 3 shots on goal in the final period of regulation and 18 throughout the entire game. A late penalty kill really tested Philadelphia and it seemed like they were dead in the water when Wyatt Johnston had a seemingly sure tap-in goal with 1:20 to go, but Ersson robbed him with the right pad to keep the game tied and force overtime on what was possibly his best – and most important – save of the season.
The Flyers would make sure Ersson’s effort wasn’t wasted and Trevor Zegras skated coast-to-coast to fire home the overtime winner and seal an amazing victory for a team that is back in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race.
3 STARS OF THE GAME: 1) Trevor Zegras – PHI, 2) Sam Ersson – PHI, 3) Casey DeSmith – DAL
UP NEXT
The Flyers visit the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night at Capital One Arena in search of their ninth consecutive road victory, which would be a new franchise record. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00pm ET.
