The Flyers picked up their fourth third-period comeback with a 5-3 win Monday night over the Coyotes at the Wells Fargo Center.
Scott Laughton scored the game-winner on a wraparound with 9:39 minutes left in the third period. He was excellent all night and played through some bruises.
“The intangible Laughts brings to us, it’s so important as far as the locker room is concerned,” head coach John Tortorella said. “And he gets rewarded. Keeps on playing. He’s a guy that has some minutes, doesn’t have minutes — he just keeps on staying about him and scores a really big goal. Kills a couple of big penalties for us. He’s an important guy that way.”
A little over four minutes before Laughton gave the Flyers the lead, Jamie Drysdale tied it at 3-3 by making a great play with his skating ability.
“He’s a special player,” Travis Konecny said. “The things he can do with his feet and the puck and create space for himself … and he’s still young. He’s going to grow and only get better.”
Konecny, Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett (empty-netter) also scored for the Flyers (29-19-6), who have won four straight after going into the extended break on a season-worst five-game skid.
Tortorella’s club went 3-0-0 on its three-game homestand. The Flyers entered the homestand 11-12-2 at the Wells Fargo Center. They really needed to start playing better at home and did so here.
The Flyers swept their two-game regular-season series with the Coyotes (23-24-4). They beat Arizona, 4-1, at Mullett Arena in December.
• The Flyers were not perfect Monday night but found a way.
“Torts came in between the second and third and just said, ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this one,'” Drysdale said. “I think it just motivates the group to go out and play to win.”
Tortorella said the Flyers know their identity. It’s a matter of showing it consistently.
“It’s the only question that I’ll have the rest of the year, is can we do it again?” Tortorella said at morning skate. “Are we going to be perfect? No, but we know how we have to play. I think that teaching’s done as far as the identity of our team and how we have to play. Can we continue to do it? Can we have our readiness mentally to do it again?
“We’ll have some bumps, we’re going to have some bumps. How do we get out of it and get back to consistently playing the right way? That’s what the story is for the 20-plus games left in the season.”
• Early in the second period, Frost showed a burst of speed to split the Coyotes’ coverage and draw a hooking penalty.
It resulted in a penalty shot and Frost scoring on a nice move to tie the game at 1-1.
“The thing I like about his game is he’s attacking the middle of the ice with the puck more,” Tortorella said at morning skate. “He used to be on the outside a lot. I think he’s taking people on, bringing pucks to the middle of the ice. You bring pucks to the middle of the ice, a lot of different things can happen.”
John Tortorella praised Morgan Frost after the Flyers’ 5-3 win over the Coyotes.
About a minute and a half later, Frost drew another penalty. But the Flyers’ power play opportunity was wiped out when Travis Sanheim was whistled for high sticking off the faceoff, putting the action at 4-on-4.
Back at 5-on-5 two minutes later, Arizona regained its lead at 2-1 thanks to Matias Maccelli.
Konecny answered at 4-on-4 off a feed from Laughton two minutes after the Coyotes’ goal.
But once again Arizona countered, this time with Alex Kerfoot on a mini breakaway for a 3-2 lead at second intermission.
“I don’t think it was a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, the first two periods,” Frost said. “But I think we still had a really good feeling in the room coming into the third. I think we kind of talked about it, it just felt like one of those games that we knew we were going to come back and win. Good feeling going into the third. Even though there were still a couple of breakdowns, I thought we played pretty…
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