Flyers top division rival Rangers behind Travis Konecny’s two goals

The Flyers were back in black on Friday afternoon, and after a wire-to-wire win against the New York Rangers, they are now back in the black too.

With a convincing 3-1 win against their Metropolitan division rivals on Black Friday, the Flyers now have more wins than losses since their season-opening victory against the Vancouver Canucks. They are now 11-10-3 thanks to a 10-5-2 record in the past 17 games. The Flyers have at least a point in four straight and seven wins in their past 11 games since a heartbreaking last-minute loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Nov. 5.

“I think it started in Carolina a couple weeks ago, we’ve been building ever since then,” forward Noah Cates said. “It was a tough couple of stretches of games with our schedule and travel and whatnot. But to find it and to play a complete game like this against a division opponent was huge for us.”

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It didn’t hurt that the game that got them over the hump was against the Rangers, handing them their fifth straight loss in front of a Wells Fargo Center mixed with orange and blue shirts. It also didn’t hurt keeping the momentum they finished the game Wednesday night in the Music City, a 2-1 overtime win with — and not how they played for the first 59 minutes.

On Friday, in their first win at home against the Rangers since March 2021 (0-4-1), the Flyers’ identity was in full view. They returned their puck support and short, quick passes while utilizing a strong breakout game and their speed on a Rangers team in a tailspin.

“We just worry about ourselves,” coach John Tortorella said. “We just wanted to get on our toes. In Nashville, we didn’t win any battles [and] as a group we just looked a step slow; found a way, though. We needed to play better tonight. I thought right from the get-go we were on our toes, our D were up in the neutral zone, we had good pinches.

“I thought right on through the game, I thought we played really well.”

Skating the day after they surely got their fill of turkey, the Flyers didn’t look like the tryptophan had an impact. By the five-minute mark of the first period, the Orange and Black had a 2-0 lead, jump-started by Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink combining to quiet the “Let’s go Rangers” chants.

After a defensive-zone face-off, Foerster blocked a shot attempt by Rangers defenseman Adam Fox inside the Flyers’ blue line and chipped the loose puck ahead. He outraced Fox for the puck and collected it along the half wall in the Rangers’ zone. Foerster sent a backhand pass to Brink as he crashed the net, getting behind New York’s defense and sliding the puck under the pad of goalie Igor Shesterkin.

“I think maybe he knows I’m going there,” Brink said of Foerster’s pass to him. “He knows that we’re going to forecheck hard and try to push into their end zone, and takes a good look before and sees me and makes nice play.”

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The goal by Brink snapped a six-game drought and was his fourth goal of the season.

“Bob’s a great player and when he gets that confidence, and he gets playing the way that he wants to play, he’s got some things that some guys don’t have,” forward Travis Konecny said. “He sees the ice really well. He can move. He handles the puck really well. It’s nice to see him get that confidence right now.”

According to Natural Stat Trick, Brink finished the game with four shot attempts, all scoring chances, including two from high-danger spots. And skating on a line with Foerster and Cates, the trio out-chanced the Rangers at five-on-five 18-8.

“[The] puck follows him offensively; I’m not worried about his offense,” Tortorella said of Brink, who added it was one of his better games. “It’s just, is he going to allow me to keep playing him in situations?

“As the game went on, they played against one of their top lines when Peter [Laviolette, the Rangers coach] changed their lines. They played against some pretty good players too. So he’s got to instill that confidence in me with his play away from the puck, without hurting his offensive play.”

Across the first two periods, the Flyers had 43 shot attempts to the Rangers’ 30. How much was the ice titled? In the first period, the Flyers had 13 scoring chances, with 10 being high-danger; the Rangers had four with just two high-danger chances.

So it’s not surprising that 70 seconds after Brink made it 1-0, Konecny doubled it.

Like the Brink goal, the play started with a block; this time it was Emil Andrae, who stepped in front of Rangers’ Artemi Panarin’s shot attempt.

The Flyers recovered the puck behind their net and defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen started the breakout. He hit Sean Couturier in the middle of the ice, who passed it over to Konecny. The speedy forward drove around Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba — taking a two-handed chop along the way — to make it a 2-0 lead.

“I’m just playing,” said Konecny, when asked if he is playing the best hockey of his career. The forward sealed the win with an empty-netter for his fourth multi-goal game of the season. He has six points (two goals, four assists) in the past four games and 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists) in 13 games in November.

Against the Rangers, he had five shot attempts in all situations. When he was on the ice at five-on-five, the Flyers had 66.67% of the shot attempts. He tied with Ristolainen, who has an assist in four straight games, for the highest Corsi For percentage across both teams.

Around this time last season, Sam Ersson was settling down and becoming a wall in net after a rocky start. Meet the 2024 iteration: Ivan Fedotov.

Fedotov started the season 0-3-0 and looked stiff and clunky net as he posted a 5.35 goals-against average and .821 save percentage. He was pulled in his start against the Seattle Kraken on Oct. 17 after allowing five goals on 24 shots. Since then, he’s gone 3-1-1 with a 2.87 GAA and .901 save percentage.

And like the phoenix rising on his mask, Fedotov went save-for-save with the 2022 Vezina Trophy-winning — and countryman — Shesterkin.

Fedotov was stellar in net, stopping 23 of 24 shots — despite not seeing his first shot until 11 minutes, 9 seconds into the game. That shot, from the left wing by Vincent Trocheck, was easily turned aside by Fedotov.

“Tough game for Feds tonight,” Tortorella said. “Not much action, watching the other guy stand on his head, and he makes some really key saves in key times. [Aleksei Kolosov] has done the same thing. We don’t get a point in Nashville the other night, nowhere near getting a point if Koly doesn’t play the way he has. So those two guys, we’re alternating them through. They have done the job and kept us in games when we struggle and made important saves at important times. Those are the saves that are really key for us.”

The next shot Fedotov saw was one of those important saves at an important time. More than five minutes after Trocheck’s shot, Brett Berard, playing in his third NHL game, was standing all alone in front of the net but Fedotov robbed the rookie. A few minutes later, he stopped Alexis Lafrenière on a two-on-one with Andrae as the lone Flyer back. The Flyers transitioned the other way and got a scoring chance from Couturier that Shesterkin nabbed with his glove.

Fedotov only saw four shots in the first period, but faced 10 in the second period, allowing one goal by Trocheck to make it a one-goal game.

The goal came on sustained pressure by the Rangers. Without his stick, Flyers center Scott Laughton tried to stop New York’s Braden Schneider at the point but the defenseman was able to step around him. Laughton misread the play and went to get a new stick but it wasn’t the reason Trocheck was open in the high slot when he got a pass from Will Cuylle. The Rangers had four men high in almost an umbrella power-play setup — with the Flyers collapsed below the hash marks — and Trocheck shifted into the high slot for the turn-and-shoot goal.

“It’s hard, it’s tough, but you have to do that because not every game the same,” Fedotov said about staying sharp despite the low shot total. “You should give a chance to the team. It doesn’t matter how many shots you have, 15 or five during the period, you just do the work … [and] just not lose confidence.”

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The Rangers didn’t push too hard in the third for the equalizer, as the Russian netminder stopped all 10 shots. He stoned Cuylle with a pad 14 seconds in, nicked a shot by Mika Zibanejad a few minutes later, and stopped Kaapo Kakko with 13:50 remaining. Zibanejad did come close with 1:44 left but missed the small window at the right post; it was one of four shots the Rangers missed in the final 20 minutes. Nine others were blocked by the Flyers.

It was also a big win for Fedotov, who turned 28 on Thursday. After the game, the Flyers sang Happy Birthday to the goalie, who sang it a little bit himself when asked by reporters about it.

“It’s been awesome,” Konecny said about Fedotov’s turnaround to his season. “You start to get to know him, and he’s an awesome guy. He’s been opening up a little bit with us, so it’s been a lot of fun. He’s been playing good and you want to play hard in front of him.”

The Flyers dressed the same 18 skaters for the fourth straight game and had the same forward lines and defensive pairings for the third consecutive game. … Forward Garnet Hathway led the Flyers with five hits and had four shots on goal.

The Flyers head to St. Louis for a Saturday night matchup with the Blues (7 p.m., NBCSP). St. Louis is 2-0 since former Flyers forward Jim Montgomery took over as head coach, including a 5-2 win against the Rangers on Monday.

Created in 2006, Cool Hockey Event’s Holiday Bash ball hockey tournament has exploded into three weekends with 75 teams competing across multiple divisions. Next weekend will see coed B, men’s novice, and women’s A and B level — including several local stars like Pam Bilger, Kat Helling, Jasmie Martinez and Chelsea Jordan, and Becky Dobson, who led the U.S. Women’s National Ball hockey team to its first gold medal at the International Street & Ball Hockey World Championship in June — compete at the 422 Sportsplex in Pottstown. The following weekend, men’s C and D divisions will hit the deck at Choice Inline Arena, next door to Holleydell Ice Arena in Sewell, N.J., and the weekend of Dec. 14-15, women’s and coed C divisions will compete in Maryland.

Around the rinks is a new segment every Friday, highlighting the local ice, ball, and inline hockey scene. Submit entries about your league, big moments, favorite players, etc., with the subject: Around the rinks, to jspiegel@inquirer.com by noon every Friday.