Flyers top Rangers following an early lead and Travis Konecny's game-sealing goal

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers were back in black on Friday afternoon.

Skating the day after they surely got their fill of turkey, the Flyers didn’t look like the tryptophan had an impact early on. By the five-minute mark of the game, the Orange and Black were up 2-0 on the New York Rangers.

For most of the game, this was not the team outplayed on Wednesday night in The Music City but still managed to beat the Nashville Predators in overtime. The Flyers returned to their puck support and short passing game while utilizing speed on a Rangers team in a tailspin.

And maybe they had some juice seeing blue shirts among the orange and black. Whatever it was that sparked the Flyers, they skated away with a 3-1 win after Travis Konecny sealed the deal with an empty-netter.

The Flyers have registered a point in four straight, with wins in three.

Supporting each other

Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink combined to quiet the “Let’s go Rangers” chants quickly.

After a defensive-zone face-off, Foerster blocked a shot attempt by Adam Fox and then chipped it ahead before outracing the defenseman for the puck. He collected it along the half wall and sent a backhand pass to Brink as he crashed the net behind the Rangers defense. Brink slid the puck under the pad to snap a six-game goal drought and register his fourth goal of the season.

Seventy seconds later, it was Konecny streaking past Jacob Trouba before burying his 12th of the season past Igor Shesterkin.

Like the Brink goal, the play started with a block. This time it was Emil Andrae, who stopped Artemi Panarin’s shot attempt. The Flyers recovered the puck behind their own net and Rasmus Ristolainen started the breakout. He took his time before hitting Sean Couturier in the middle and drove around Trouba — taking a two-handed chop along the way — to make it a 2-0 lead.

Right Said Fed

Around this time last season, Sam Ersson was settling down and becoming a wall in net after a rocky start. Meet the 2024 iteration: Ivan Fedotov.

Fedotov started the season 0-3-0 and looked stiff and clunky net as he posted a 5.35 goals-against average and .821 save percentage. He was pulled in his start against the Seattle Kraken after allowing five goals on 24 shots. Since then, he’s gone 3-1-1 with a 2.87 GAA and .901 save percentage.

And like the phoenix rising on his mask, he continued that on Friday — despite not seeing his first shot until 11 minutes, 9 seconds into the game. That shot, from the left wing by Vincent Trocheck, was easily turned aside by Fedotov — as a big cheer came, all but certainly from the Rangers fans in attendance.

The next shot he saw came more than five minutes later. Brett Berard, playing in his third NHL game, was standing all alone in front of the net but Fedotov robbed the rookie. A smidge under two minutes later, he stopped Alexis Lafrenière on a two-on-one with Andrae as the lone Flyer back. The Flyers transitioned the other way and got a scoring chance from Couturier that Shesterkin nabbed with the glove.

Fedotov only saw four shots in the first period, including one with a second on the clock, but faced 10 in the second period, allowing one goal by Trocheck to make it a one-goal game.

The goal came on sustained pressure by the Rangers. Scott Laughton without his stick, tried to stop Braden Schneider at the point but the defenseman was able to step around him.

Laughton then misread the play and went to get a new stick but it wasn’t the reason Trocheck was open in the high slot when he got a pass from Will Cuylle. The Rangers had four men high in almost an umbrella power-play set-up — with the Flyers collapsed below the hash marks — and Trocheck shifted into the high slot for the turn-and-shoot goal.

The Rangers didn’t push hard in the third for the equalizer, as the Russian netminder stopped six shots. He stoned Cuylle with a pad 14 seconds in, nicked a shot by Mika Zibanejad a few minutes later, and stopped Kaapo Kakko with 13:50 remaining.

Breakaways

Fedotov got the start. ... The Flyers dressed the same 18 skaters for the fourth straight game and had the same forward lines and defensive pairings for the third consecutive game.

Up next

The Flyers head to St. Louis for a Saturday night match-up with the Blues.