Trevor Zegras, Christian Dvorak each score twice in Flyers’ 6-5 win over St. Louis Blues

ST. LOUIS — It may be the home of the Blues, but St. Louis is also known as “The Gateway City,” and it opened up a portal to the Flyers finding their offense.

Entering the night, the Flyers ranked 30th in the NHL with 2.56 goals per game. They blew that number out of the water and, while it wasn’t pretty, defeated the Blues 6-5 in a shootout.

Trevor Zegras, of course, scored in the shootout, and Sam Ersson stopped Robert Thomas and Jimmy Snuggerud before Dylan Holloway sent it wide to seal the win in the first game with the Flyers dads on the trip. The win snapped the Orange and Black’s two-game losing streak, with each loss having come in overtime.

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Zegras had a chance to win the game in overtime on a penalty shot after he was pulled down by Pavel Buchnevich on a breakaway, but Blues goalie Jordan Binnington made the save.

“I mishandled it,” Zegras said of the penalty shot. “I put my head down, and he got his pad down. So I figured, I don’t know, I’ve never been in a situation where I get two on the same goalie, so I tried to do the same move, just a little different, and try to throw him off, because he’s a [heck] of a shootout goalie.

“I don’t know if I had ever scored on him in the past, and a lot of respect for him for sure.”

The game didn’t start out well. Just 79 seconds in, Zegras tried to chip the puck to Bobby Brink in the neutral zone. It was picked off by Jordan Kyrou, who skated into the Flyers’ zone and sent a blistering wrist shot past Ersson.

Less than 7 minutes later, Zegras tied the game, 1-1. The play started deep in the Flyers’ end with Travis Sanheim working it up the boards to Zegras, who got it past Blues defenseman Cam Fowler at the point.

Christian Dvorak picked up the puck in the neutral zone and dropped the puck to Zegras inside the St. Louis blue line. The New York native, with his dad, Gary Zegras, at the Enterprise Center, skated down toward the middle and sent the wrister past Binnington.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Zegras said about having the dads trip. “That’s why it was tough, the couple of bad turnovers in the first [period], I was like not in front of Pops and all the other dads. So it was nice that we turned it around and [were] able to get the win.”

The goal is Zegras’ first in November and fifth of the season.

But Zegras wasn’t done in the first period, and neither was his line. Zegras, Dvorak, and Owen Tippett played a role in all five of the Flyers’ goals in regulation.

Dvorak scored his fourth of the season 23 seconds after Justin Faulk made it 3-1 for St. Louis. The Flyers center’s linemates put pressure on the Blues behind the net, and then Dvorak passed the puck up to the point, starting things in motion. Noah Juulsen’s shot missed, but it went to Emil Andrae at the left point, who passed the puck to Tippett in the slot. Tippett shuffled the puck on goal from the slot, with Dvorak cleaning it up.

Zegras tied it, 3-3, tipping a point shot by Andrae for his second of the night from the doorstep. Dvorak made it a one-goal game, 5-4, in the third period with his second. Tippett put pressure on Blues defenseman Matthew Kessel, causing him to lose an edge, and Tippett sent a backhand pass to Dvorak, who cut to the middle before beating Binnington easily.

“Yeah, it’s a lot of fun with those two,” Dvorak said. “Been with them for a decent amount of the season here, and we built some chemistry. We were reading off each other well, and made some good plays tonight, and hopefully we could continue to do that.”

Zegras said with a smile, “We had a nice skate at Voorhees the other day with the dads. So, maybe it was a little Voorhees magic.”

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Then Tippett broke his 10-game goal-scoring drought to tie the game at 5-5 with just under 10 minutes left in regulation. The winger sent the puck up to Juulsen at the point. As the defenseman was sending it over to Dvorak in the right circle, Tippett went to the high slot and fired home the one-timer.

“Yeah, feels good. Obviously, try not to get too frustrated when things go that way,” Tippett said of the drought. “But, just stay on it and take the positives, getting chances and obviously happy one went in tonight.”

Added Dvorak: “It’s great. He’s hit a lot of posts, crossbars; that’s hockey sometimes. You know he’s going to work hard, and the bounce is going to come his way sooner rather than later, and it’s a big goal for us.”

Tippett had a goal and three assists for his first four-point night since Dec. 21, 2024. Dvorak scored twice and had an assist, and Zegras had two goals for the third time this season, plus an assist.

“Connected, like holding on to pucks,” said coach Rick Tocchet about the key for the line on Friday. “We call it piston offense … one guy would go and the other would fill. So they’re confusing, [and] when you play like that, it’s hard to play good defense."

Ersson was back in the net on Friday, but struggled to find his footing — until the shootout.

He allowed the goal to Kyrou despite it looking like he had a pretty good line on it. And just over a minute after Zegras tied the game, 1-1, Snuggerud gave St. Louis the lead.

Thomas intercepted the pass attempt by Travis Konecny meant for Cam York and then kept it despite Sanheim trying to knock it away. Thomas skated into the Flyers zone and did a button hook in the right circle to hit the trailing Snuggerud. The winger, who is the son of former Flyer Dave Snuggerud, skated into the puck and beat Ersson from the middle.

“I think the slow start, I feel like we’ve been doing that a lot recently, and [if] we could eliminate that from our game, I think we’d be in a way better spot,” Zegras said. “Obviously, I know those first couple were definitely on me, but it was nice to have the boys rally behind it and help us get back in the game for sure.”

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In the second period, Faulk gave St. Louis a two-goal lead off a faceoff deep in the Flyers’ zone. After an offside call — that was questionable — Dvorak lost the faceoff to Oskar Sundqvist. Fowler got it to Faulk for the one-timer that beat Ersson blocker side.

Ersson made a nice stop on Buchnevich with 1 minute, 50 seconds left in the second period. But 40 seconds into the third, he allowed a goal to Holloway from the left face-off circle, which Ersson may have been screened on, and then Thomas scored on a one-timer from the slot less than 5 minutes into the final frame.

The Flyers outshot the Blues 6-2 the rest of regulation, scoring twice, and 6-3 in overtime. And then Ersson did what he does best and stopped pucks in the shootout.

“We weren’t ready at the start, and then at the start of the third [period] we weren’t ready,” Tocchet said. “But we limit them to 17 shots and then, obviously, Erss, he hung in there.

“That’s tough for Erss, so give him a lot of credit for sticking with it. You know, sometimes things don’t go your way, and you’ve got to stick with it.”

Ersson allowed five goals on 17 shots. He has not lost in regulation since Oct. 16, is 3-0-1 in his last four starts, and is 3-1-2 this season.

The expectation is that goalie Dan Vladař will start on Saturday. ... Andrae had two assists, for the first multipoint game of his career, and had a plus-minus of plus-4. Said Tocchet, “He’s done a real nice job. I thought he played really well. He’s one of our bright spots tonight. So, yeah, continue to grow, continue to do the right things, and he’s done a nice job for us.” ... Konecny had his eight-game point streak snapped (four goals, six assists).

The Flyers finish the two-game road trip in Dallas, taking on the Stars on Saturday night (8 p.m., NBCSP). Dallas beat the Montreal Canadiens 7-0 on Thursday and remains without its captain, Jamie Benn.