Flyers continue to roll with 5-2 win over the Blue Jackets

The last time the Flyers faced a spiraling squad, they got caught in a trap. But that loss to the San Jose Sharks way back on Nov. 7 now looks like an aberration with the Orange and Black rolling.

On Sunday, the group that had won its past four games, including a 4-3 overtime win against the defending Stanley Cup champs, did what it was supposed to do: defeat a team that entered the game with eight straight losses and just one win in the past 13.

The Flyers, on the other hand, have now won five straight and have leapfrogged into the No. 2 slot in the Metropolitan Division. If the season ended today, the team would be in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Of course, there’s a long road to go and there will be dips in the season, as coach John Tortorella has often pointed out.

But the ability to close out opponents is the next step the team needed to take, and they did just that in the 5-2 win against the Blue Jackets.

“To me, it’s belief,” Tortorella said. “You find a way to scratch away some wins against some really good teams and you start believing that we’re doing this right. It’s not a physical skill, it’s a mental skill. Belief is huge when you’re dealing with 25-26 athletes, to be a team. Belief has to be the main constant.”

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Belief is surely running high and Tortorella has stated a number of times that his crew needs to handle momentum swings. They almost lost it after allowing the second goal to Columbus, a sneaky one by Boone Jenner off a bouncing shot by former Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov. Five seconds later, Tyson Foerster was called for holding the stick, but the Flyers killed that off.

Then, through the first 12 minutes of the third, the ice was tilted at times in the Blue Jackets’ favor. But they once again weathered the storm and Travis Konecny notched an insurance goal with under eight minutes to go before Cam York added an empty-netter.

“Even when we have a lead, you see it tonight, we don’t let off the gas,” Ryan Poehling said. “We just keep pushing forward and playing on our toes, and that’s important. There’s so many momentum swings within hockey so the moment you’re on your heels, and you see them get momentum, that doubt kind of creeps in. So for us to just kind of keep playing forward and being on our toes helps us a lot.”

Joel Farabee continues to be the Flyers’ opener. He made it 1-0 when he took a pass from Poehling just inside the blue line and drove to the net before scoring on a backhand blocker side. He did this despite having Yegor Chinakov on him.

The forward, who also had an assist, has seven goals on the season, six of them being the Flyers’ first goal of the game. It was his first goal since that noted Sharks loss, ending a four-game goal drought.

Lou Nolan didn’t have time to announce the penalty to Kirill Marchenko when Bobby Brink added one on the power play. A healthy scratch for the past three games, Brink said Friday after he stayed on for some extra work after practice, “It’s kind of on me to put myself in the position to stay in the lineup.”

His goal should certainly help his case. Brink got the puck on the half-wall before he stepped into the left circle and fired off a wrister short-side past a Farabee screen for his fourth of the season.

“I don’t know if it’s pressure,” Brink said when asked about slotting back in and needing to produce. “It almost kind of gives you a little more energy just get back in the lineup. I think that’s how I felt, I was just excited to be in a lineup and I knew I was going to have fresh legs and that’s what I tried to bring.”

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Brinks’ marker wasn’t the only special one — in more ways than one. Poehling added a shorthanded goal in the second period, a much-deserved reward for a guy who has been moved up in the lineup and given more ice time. And a guy who was scratched in three of the previous nine games entering Sunday.

“It’s been great,” Poehling, who also had two assists, said about being given more offensive responsibilities. “The biggest thing is I’ve just stayed ready. Even at the start of the season I wasn’t playing a lot, but you just got to stay ready, never know when the opportunity is going to come. So, it’s been great so far. I mean, not just me, but the team’s been playing really good hockey.”

After Sean Walker made a great poke check near on Adam Fantilli, Poehling and Garnet Hathaway broke out two-on-none with Poehling scoring on the return feed past a sliding Spencer Martin. It took a long review to ensure it fully crossed the goal line, but Poehling was rewarded with his second goal in three games.

“Well, I thought he had a really good camp,” said Tortorella, who also added he appreciated Poehling “betting on himself” with a one-year deal with the Flyers. “The thing that sticks out to me with him, is he could skate. He’s long. He could skate. ... I just want to see him up in the lineup and see if he’s gonna sink or swim there, and I think he’s done some really good things.”

Ivan Provorov returned to Wells Fargo on Sunday after he was traded to Columbus over the summer in a three-way deal that brought Sean Walker and other assets to Philadelphia.

Announced in the starting lineup, Provorov was booed heavily but received a nice ovation when he was welcomed back on the scoreboard. He raised his stick and cheered the faithful a few times.

“Seven years was a long time,” the 2015 first-rounder said pregame. “There’s been some good times, there’s been some bad times. But overall, when I played here I gave everything I had.”

Provorov finished the night with one assist in 24 minutes, 52 seconds of ice time.

Poehling has only had one three-point game previously in his career: a hat trick in his first NHL game as a member of the Montreal Canadiens back on April 6, 2019. ... Sam Ersson made 19 saves in his first game since a 35-save performance in a win against the Anaheim Ducks on Nov. 10. That win started the five-game winning streak for the Flyers. “Winning is fun. Winning is why we play and it gives you momentum, it gives you energy,” he said. ... Walker had two assists and York added an assist for his first multipoint game of the season. ... Morgan Frost was a healthy scratch. He had played the previous four games, collecting four points (two goals, two assists). ... Patrik Laine was a healthy scratch for the Blue Jackets, who went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen.

The Flyers return to the ice on Tuesday for practice before heading to Long Island. They’ll take on the Islanders on Wednesday night at UBS Arena (7:30 p.m., NBCSP).