Flyers outlast Islanders, 3-2, on Scott Laughton’s overtime goal

The Flyers had been getting badly outshot, had rarely put together three strong periods in a game, and had used an ever-changing lineup heading into Saturday’s matchup at the Wells Fargo Center.

They were winning, but they were winning ugly, and coach Alain Vigneault knew it would catch up to them.

So Vigneault sent a message in an attempt to improve the Flyers’ five-on-five play and get his forwards to play a 200-foot game: He benched high-scoring Travis Konecny.

Vigneault is happy with Saturday’s result, but probably would have preferred a different method.

The Flyers were soundly outplayed in the second and third period, but used Scott Laughton’s overtime goal to defeat the New York Islanders, 3-2.

The Flyers are 6-2-1. Somehow.

“I would say you have to be good to be lucky, and lucky to be good, I guess,” Laughton said after the Flyers extended their winning streak to three games. “I mean, we have to do a better job of putting pucks at the net, creating chances for ourselves and creating things down low. We’ve got to get better and continue to get better throughout the year.”

Laughton skated from the right wing to inside and through the left circle and patiently held onto the puck before beating Semyon Varlamov with 1 minute, 44 seconds left in overtime. It was Laughton’s first goal of the season.

Shayne Gostisbehere made a nice play in the defensive end and then set up the goal, collecting his 200th career point.

Vigneault’s message was received in a strong first period. But his players fell into bad habits and were outshot, 21-8, and outscored, 2-0, over the second and third periods.

» READ MORE: Flyers bench Travis Konecny vs. Islanders, Samuel Morin makes season debut

“For whatever reason, in the second and third period, getting pucks behind their D and keeping our shifts short so we can have a fast pace, [didn’t happen],” said Vigneault, whose team’s penalty kill was 4 for 4 and contributed greatly. “They were the better team. Give them credit. But at the end of the day, we were able to bend but not break.”

In the opening period, the Flyers’ forwards backchecked better than in any game this season, keying a 2-0 lead.

The Flyers controlled the opening period, but the Islanders dominated the second and got to within 2-1 when Jordan Eberle scored on a one-timer from deep inside the right circle, beating Carter Hart to the short side with 12:29 left in the stanza.

Eberle was left wide open as defensemen Travis Sanheim and Phil Myers both defended Adam Pelech after he skated behind the net, leaving the shooter uncovered.

A little over four minutes later, Scott Mayfield, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound defenseman, made it 2-2 from the top of the right circle, putting a shot through a maze of players and under Hart’s blocker.

A pair of perfectly executed give-and-goes produced first-period goals by Jake Voracek (from Claude Giroux) and Kevin Hayes (from James van Riemsdyk) to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead.

“I thought we really set the tone early. We came out hard,” said Hart after stopping 26 of 28 shots. “That was probably one of our best periods of the year. Obviously, we gave up the lead in the second period, but we battled through it and we found our way at the end – and that’s all that matters.”

It was the first meeting between the teams since the Islanders won in the conference semifinals last year, four games to three. Voracek now has a six-game point streak and leads the Flyers with 10 points in nine games.

The Flyers entered Saturday night’s matchup with a 5-2-1 record despite the worst shot-differential — minus-10 per game — in the NHL. They had been averaging a league-low 23.8 shots per game while allowing 34.1 shots, the NHL’s second-highest figure.

In other words, they were recording wins because of mostly good goaltending, opportunistic scoring, and solid power-play production — and not because of their way-too-inconsistent five-on-five play.

In last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals, the Islanders controlled a big portion of the seven games and allowed a total of just 16 goals. The Flyers scored three goals, total, in their four losses in the series.

The Isles’ defense was stifling again during portions of Saturday’s game. At the end of regulation, the Flyers had been outshot, 25-8, since Hayes’ first-period goal, and only Hart’s strong play kept the game tied. Hart robbed Leo Komarov as he tried to finish an odd-man rush with 2:07 to go in regulation.

The Flyers were again badly outshot (28-17) but again won ugly.

“For us, it was about hanging on by a thread and finding a way to win,” Gostisbehere said. “A win’s a win.”