The Philadelphia Flyers redeemed themselves Wednesday, trouncing the Buffalo Sabres 5-2.
They set the stage for a statement game Sunday against the Stanley Cup favorite Colorado Avalanche, a team that (gulp) has points in 25 of its 26 games.
In their previous game, the Flyers dropped a 5-1 decision to the arch-rival Pittsburgh Penguins, a defeat made worse because they lost right winger Tyson Foerster, their co-leading goal-scorer, for two to three months because of a suspected shoulder injury.
The Sabres, however, helped cure their frustrations.
The Flyers scored three times in a 59-second span in the first period, erasing a 1-0 deficit and coasting to a win at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Buffalo has been bad forever, so this wasn’t a surprising victory.
That said, the Sabres have been playing better lately – six wins in their last nine games before Wednesday.
But Philly (15-8-3), one of the NHL’s most surprising teams, couldn’t afford two straight losses heading into Sunday’s game against the Avs. They couldn’t afford to start a tailspin that could wipe out their impressive start.
And they couldn’t get into a woe-is-me feeling because of Foerster’s injury.
“He’s a tough guy to replace, for sure,” Trevor Zegras said, “so we all have to do a little more.”
Flyers Officially Decide on Tyson Foerster Injury Replacements
The Philadelphia Flyers are set to be without top forward Tyson Foerster for at least two months, and with the injury confirmed, Foerster’s two injury replacements have already been selected.
Here’s the thing: even with Foerster and his 10 goals before Wednesday, the Flyers haven’t been an offense juggernaut. Au contraire.
They entered the night 26th out of 32 teams, averaging just 2.76 goals-for per game.
And then five different players scored – Travis Konecny, Zegras, Bobby Brink, Noah Cates and Owen Tippett – five players contributed two points apiece, and the Flyers fired 35 shots in their league-leading 11th comeback win of the season.
The Flyers moved up to third in the Metro, just three points behind division-leading Washington, which has played two more games.
Philadelphia scored four of its goals from the dirty areas near the net. Tim Kerr and Gary Dornhoefer would have been proud.
“It has to be habitual,” said coach Rick Tocchet, who had no update on defenseman Cam York after he left the game with an unspecified injury. “You have to do it all the time.”
It was good to see the offense erupt, the power play (2-for-5) click and the penalty kill go 1-for-6.
Tocchet, who continues to push the right buttons, went back to most of the players on his original No. 1 power-play unit – Konecny, Tippett, Matvei Michkov, Zegras and Jamie Drysdale – and it paid dividends.
Now the real test comes Sunday afternoon, when the Flyers host a 19-1-6 Colorado team that is averaging 4.08 goals per game and allowing 2.04 goals. Both figures lead the league.
Some of the Flyers didn’t yet want to talk about facing the Avs. Tippett wasn’t one of them.
He said it was a good primer for Colorado.
“Obviously, we wanted to have a bounce back after last game, and it’s a good start,” said Tippett. “Obviously, with a couple days we can fine-tune some stuff in practice, but that was a good start.”
Against Colorado, the Flyers will need to be at their best just to be competitive. They can’t let down for any stretch as they did for a 21-minute span Wednesday, when Buffalo outshot them 16-6 in parts of the first two periods, but goalie Sam Ersson stood tall.
It will take 60 minutes of excellence on Sunday if the Flyers want to stay in the game.
Wednesday, though not perfect, was a nice building block.
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