Flyers pull away from the Canucks, 5-2, with four third-period goals

Skating in front of a sellout crowd of 19,994 at Xfinity Mobile Arena, the Flyers gave the faithful something to cheer about.

In their final home game of 2025, the Flyers beat the Vancouver Canucks, coach Rick Tocchet’s old team, 5-2.

“Happy to be home,” said Owen Tippett. “Obviously, a long road trip, so you want to have a bounce back and use your fans as much as you can. So they were great tonight. Obviously, in warmup[s], you can tell there’s a lot of people here. So, we were ready to go in the room.”

After struggling to close out games, including the last game of the four-game road trip that saw the Flyers blow a third period lead to the Rangers, they scored four goals in the third period to seal the win.

“I think in the past, we just kind of sat back a little bit too much ... But I thought we were more aggressive tonight and controlled most of the play,” Christian Dvorak said. “We have a lot of chances, and capitalized on them. So I thought that was a big step for us in the third tonight.”

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The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the Orange and the Black. It is their second win in the past seven games and their fourth win out of 11 games in December (4-3-4).

Standing on the Chase Bridge at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, Flyers general manager Danny Brière revealed that goalie Dan Vladař had “a little, little boo-boo.” He added that his upper-body injury is “nothing too serious” and that “he should be back, we hope, by Monday.”

After not dressing on Saturday, Vladař was indeed back between the pipes on Monday, and the netminder picked up right where he left on in his last start, a 4-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens last Tuesday.

“All the trainers did an awesome job, especially [assistant athletic trainer] Joe Mele, so all the credit to him, and [he] got me back as soon as possible,” Vladař said postgame. “So I’m very thankful. And he’s got magic hands.”

Any nervousness getting back between the pipes?

“As a goalie, you’ve got to be a little bit nervous every game,” he said. “So obviously, it’s something that comes with playing goalie. But no, health-wise, just no fear as usual.”

Vladař played his angles well as his defense kept the Canucks away from the front of the net. Through the first two periods, he stopped all 17 shots on goal he faced.

According to Natural Stat Trick, only one — on the power play — was a high-danger shot; and it was the only shot he stopped across two penalty kills. Eleven of the shots were low-danger. Late in the second period, it looked like he even made a save off his mask on a shot by Evander Kane.

In the third period, things fell off a little bit.

The Czech netminder was 6 minutes, 55 seconds away from getting the first Flyers shutout of the season, but Vancouver’s Max Sasson ended the bid. Conor Garland drew in Emil Andrae and made a leading pass to Sasson, who skated in alone and scored.

Drew O’Connor added a goal with 18 seconds left for the Canucks, who had eight shots on goal —with both coming from a high-danger spot

The fourth line has been retooled, and it is working. Nikita Grebenkin and Carl Grundström each got on the board for the Flyers.

Grebenkin gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead 13:13 into the second period. Grundström made it 2-0 5:58 into the third period.

“We played pretty direct and got pucks to the net, and we got rewarded for it today,” Grundström said.

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To open the scoring, Grebenkin got a stretch pass from Cam York down the left wing boards and, although it bounced off his stick, he chased down the puck. The Russian winger then sent a backhand pass up the boards to Rodrigo Ābols, who was providing support.

Ābols curled away from his check and sent the puck up to Andrae at the point. The Swedish defenseman put a one-timer toward the net, and Grebenkin, who went to the net after being checked along the end boards, tipped in the puck past Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko.

It was Grebenkin’s second goal of the season and his first since Nov. 4 in Montreal, which was also the first of his NHL career.

Grebenkin then played a big role in helping Grundström pad the lead with his fourth goal of the season. The 22-year-old winger got the puck high along the right boards from Grundström and carried it down behind the net.

Along the way, he avoided a check by Filip Hronek and then did a little fake before going deeper into the zone. He sent a backhand chip pass to Grundström in front, finding an open lane despite four Canucks surrounding the Swede.

Grundström, who had peeled off and headed to the net after getting the puck to Grebenkin, quickly got the shot off on Demko before getting a second chance and burying it to put the Flyers up 2-0.

“[Grundström]’s an NHLer,” said Ābols, who had two assists for the first multipoint game of his career. “He’s got 300 games, you know, he’s playing with confidence. It’s something maybe some of us were lacking down there. He comes out with confidence, a lot of speed, a lot of skill, and we can feed off it.”

The game was one of the better ones for Grebenkin, who has played in 24 of the Flyers’ 35 games.

“The goal, that’s what I saw in training camp, get to the net, he was around the net,” said Tocchet. “Then behind the net [on Grundström’s goal] he made a [heck] of a play to hold it.

“We knew hash mark down [he’s good]. The other parts [of his game] he’s getting better at not overthinking. But I think getting that goal really helps him. Like, that’s the places where he’s got to go.”

Brière also added that Dvorak would miss Saturday’s game, and he did with a minor lower-body injury. Like Vladař, he returned on Monday and played a big role in the win.

“I guess whenever you miss the game, there’s concern, but I felt a lot better after taking a couple of days off, and that’s kind of what I needed,” Dvorak said. “And felt pretty good tonight.”

In the third period, the Flyers headed up the ice, and Travis Konecny hit York coming late. The defenseman handed it back to Konecny, who then fed Trevor Zegras skating down the slot.

His shot attempt was blocked by Brock Boeser and went off the glass behind the net before Dvorak batted the puck out of the air into the back of the net at the left post to put the Flyers ahead 3-0.

The goal was reviewed for a potential high stick; however, Dvorak said he purposely waited until it was below the crossbar before knocking it in for his eighth of the year.

“Yeah, it was crazy,” said Tippett with a grin when asked about the snazzy passing leading up to the goal. “Obviously, the patience on [Dvorak], too, to wait for it to drop below the crossbar before he whacked it in, it was pretty special too.”

Tippett pulled off a highlight-reel move — going inside-outside on Vancouver’s Tom Willander — to add a breakaway goal in the third period for his 11th of the season. On one of his 10 shots on goal, which tied his career high, he had a breakaway chance earlier in the game that he could not capitalize on. “I wasn’t too happy with the first breakaway; I don’t think I really got him moving too much,” he said. “So kind of learned and improved the next time.” … Matvei Michkov added an empty-netter for his first goal in December. … Zegras extended his point streak to eight games (five goals, five assists). ... Forwards Garnet Hathaway and Nic Deslauriers, and defenseman Noah Juulsen were healthy scratches. It was the second straight scratch for Hathaway and the fourth straight for Juulsen.

The Flyers get right back at it on Tuesday against the Blackhawks in Chicago (9 p.m., TNT, truTV, HBO Max).