Samuel Morin’s arrival (finally) signals a better tomorrow for Flyers | Sam Donnellon

With 5 minutes, 14 seconds remaining in regulation during a tie game between the Flyers and the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night, 6-foot-7 Samuel Morin hit Toronto’s Nazem Kadri as 6-foot-6 Philippe Myers moved to the front of the net.

It was the 17th NHL game for Myers, 22, who began this season with Lehigh Valley despite a mostly impressive training camp. For Morin, 23, it was the fourth NHL game, and first in 16 months, against a high-powered team that had scored 13 goals in the first two meetings between the teams this season, and four more Wednesday.

The first of those goals underlined the difficulty Morin faced in joining a season that was 77 games old, with only two AHL games under his belt since returning from the ACL tear he suffered last spring. That injury came soon after he had recovered from a core-muscle injury that cost him most of last season, and rendered him less effective.

Morin left the crease a little too early to pursue Tyler Ennis behind the net, leaving Shayne Gostisbehere to deal with two shooters in front. To be fair, Ghost didn’t really cover either of them, and Ennis’ reverse pass after 20-year-old goalie Carter Hart had moved off the post was an easy conversion for Connor Brown.

``The first goal, maybe I was a little aggressive,’’ Morin said. ``But that’s just part of the game sometimes.’’

Here’s the bigger part of that game: The combined ages of the three Flyers mentioned are still less than that of 68-year-old defensive assistant Rick Wilson, who played the two kids over those final five minutes with only the Flyers’ last gasp at a playoff berth at stake.

Pull one out and throw in 22-year-old Travis Sanheim, or 22-year-old Ivan Provorov, or even ``ancient’’ 24-year-old Robert Hagg, and you still can barely touch ol’ Rick.

Any three combined also barely exceed the age of their 56-year-old head coach, Scott Gordon, who decided to finally activate Morin after running him through regular practices for weeks — in a game that could have officially eliminated the Flyers, and after an ugly first period dominated by errors more egregious than Morin’s, appeared that it would.

But then Sanheim fed Travis Konecny a cross-ice pass and joined the rush for a three-on-two, and Toronto’s two-goal lead was halved. A few minutes later, Hagg got an assist on Radko Gudas’ harmless flip from the point, and it was tied.

Later, taking a cross-ice feed from Provorov, Sanheim almost one-timed a wrist shot into the slot and off the stick of Sean Couturier to push the Flyers ahead.

A day before, Sanheim had said this about his maturation: ``It’s just something that’s really developed in my game. Before, I was just jumping just to jump. And be offensive. And go in basically every time that I could. Now, I’m a lot smarter in putting myself in better situations. Understanding when is the right time. When I’m not going to get caught. And if I am going to get caught, I have an exit strategy of how I am going to get in and how I’m going to get out.’’

He did just that during a third-period shift after Toronto had tied the game at 4. A big keep in the zone became an offensive rush that took him behind the net, and Sanheim lingered at the side for a few moments, waiting to see if a shot was forthcoming. Then he sprinted back toward the blue line to assume his role there, ultimately breaking up a mid-ice pass.

Watching Sanheim now, as compared with 12 months ago, is all the tease long-suffering Flyers fans should need to get them through another long, hot summer. It’s impossible not to play the projection game with Myers, a smooth-skating, mature-beyond-his-years player whose stick and smarts have already proved disruptive to seasoned players.

Backpedaling as the Leafs attempted to break from their own zone Wednesday night, Myers extended his stick back into their zone to interrupt a pass, reversed direction, and lofted a backhander high off the glass behind the goal to keep the Flyers inside the zone.

``Compared to the first game, it’s a night-and-day difference,’’ Myers said. ``Now I’m just trying to play my game. Obviously still not trying to complicate things too much. But I’m jumping in the rush when I get the opportunity and I feel more comfortable out there. And it’s been good to gain the coach’s trust and get a little bit more ice time, too.’’

The Flyers might indeed hire a designer coach such as Joel Quenneville before next season. But it’s hard to believe he would have stepped into this mess of a season and done the job Gordon has, trusting these kids as they make their mistakes and find their way, all the time making a push to the playoffs.

Morin registered three hits and three blocked shots in 8:09 of ice time Wednesday, and even put one on net. And he was out there when the score was 2-2, 3-3, and 4-4.

``It was awesome,’’ Morin said. ``I think I was following it pretty good. … I was pretty nervous, but I think the more the game went, the better it was.’’

When he was coaching the Phantoms in November, Gordon told me that ``I just worry about what’s in front of me’’ and that ``the fun part for me down here is actually seeing the players progress.’’ That willingness to put young players in bigger roles and stretch their responsibilities has been as much a part of the Flyers’ resurgence to respectability as has been the goaltending of Hart.

The Flyers were 5-1-1 with Brian Elliott after Hart sprained his ankle. Elliott deserves a ton of credit for that, but Gordon’s hand was all over it, too.

The Flyers rallied from a two-goal deficit Wednesday to win, something that was a rarity under the previous coach. There were five defensemen 24 or younger, and a fifth who is 25. Gordon has coached them all, here and in Allentown, and they’ve all fixed flaws and grown in confidence under him.

That should count for something, right?