Flyers win third straight with first shootout victory since November in 3-2 win over Maple Leafs

TORONTO ― It can be a good life if you don’t weaken, and right now the Flyers are staying strong.

Facing a Toronto Maple Leafs team in a tailspin, the Flyers bent but did not break and skated away with a 3-2 shootout victory. On this night in Toronto, the Flyers won their third straight game for the first time since the end of November, putting them four points back of the idle Boston Bruins for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.

In the shootout, Matvei Michkov scored on a nifty deke, and Trevor Zegras sent the puck in glove-side. Flyers goalie Dan Vladař stopped Auston Matthews and Max Domi to seal the win. It is the Flyers’ first shootout victory since Nov. 28, amid that three-game winning streak.

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Skating without top scorer, Travis Konecny, who is day-to-day with an upper-body injury, the Flyers were looking for a place to happen, and it came off Noah Cates’ stick.

Defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen put a shot on goal that former Flyers goalie and New Jersey native Anthony Stolarz could not control. Michkov tried to send the loose puck in, but his shot went wide, and Bobby Brink tracked the puck down in the corner, protecting it from Toronto defenders. He fed Cates, who sent a wicked wrister into the twine and pointed right at Brink.

Cates’ 12th goal of the season, which extended his point streak to four games, briefly gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead in the third period. William Nylander scored a power-play goal less than three minutes later to tie the game after Denver Barkey was called for tripping. The Swede scored on a one-timer off a circle-to-circle pass from John Tavares to tie the game up.

In overtime, the Maple Leafs controlled play for the most part — although Jamie Drysdale had a nice scoring chance — but the Flyers’ defense stood tall. Notably, Cam York broke up a pass intended for an open Matthews, who would have had a Grade A chance.

Toronto’s Dakota Joshua put the Flyers in a 1-0 hole with 4 minutes, 38 seconds left in the first period.

The forward chipped a pass from Oliver Ekman-Larsson that went deep into the Flyers’ end. Defenseman Nick Seeler tracked it down in the left corner and tried to play it up the boards, but Leafs forward Matias Maccelli intercepted it and fed Joshua in the left circle.

He shot it off the pass, sending it between the legs of Sean Couturier and over Vladař’s shoulder.

The Flyers tied it up on a power-play goal with under two minutes to go in the first after two futile opportunities, with one cut short due to too many men on the ice.

With Konecny out, the units looked different. One had Michkov, Zegras, Brink, Drysdale, and Owen Tippett. The other saw York, Travis Sanheim, Christian Dvorak, Cates, and Barkey line up together. The latter group got the goal.

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Cates got the puck in the bumper from Barkey — who hails from nearby Newmarket, Ontario, and had a large contingent in the crowd — and as he shot it, Maple Leafs forward Steven Lorentz went stick-on-stick, causing the puck to bounce to the net. The puck went off Dvorak, and he jammed it in as Stolarz was trying to squeeze the pads.

The goal is his 13th of the season and second on the power play. It is the Flyers’ second goal in the last 13 opportunities.

Like Saturday against the Boston Bruins, the second period saw the Flyers get outshot, with the Leafs getting 11 shots to the Flyers’ four. But like Saturday, when the Bruins put 16 on Vladař and the Flyers had three, the goalie stopped them all.

Philly got pinned a few times, but, according to Natural Stat Trick, allowed just one high-danger chance at five-on-five during the middle frame as the Maple Leafs had 68.57% of the shot attempts. In the third period, the Flyers had 61.11% of the attempts.

The Flyers lead the league with 16 wins when trailing 1-0 and have 16 comeback wins. … Seeler left the game late in the second period due to a lower-body injury. … The Flyers outshot the Maple Leafs 14-7 in the first period. … Forwards Nic Deslauriers and Brink each hit a milestone with Deslauriers skating in his 700th NHL game and Brink in his 200th. … The Buffalo Sabres had four scouts in attendance — including associate general manager Marc Bergevin — with rumors swirling that they are high on getting Ristolainen back in the fold.

The Flyers play their last game before Friday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline when the Utah Mammoth visit Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday (7 p.m., NBCSP).