Flyers takeaways: Trevor Zegras stars; team responds well to Rick Tocchet’s challenge

MONTREAL — Standing in the hallway outside the Flyers locker room after an impressive 5-4 shootout win against a very good Montreal Canadiens squad on Tuesday — and two days after he asked for “some will” from his team — coach Rick Tocchet was pleased with his club’s response.

“We just had two efforts that were uninspiring. Tonight, we were inspired,” he said. “You’re going to have those [uninspiring games] in 82 games, and you’ve just got to recognize it, be accountable to it, and we were, all of us, even myself.”

Here are five key moments from the Flyers’ first road win of the season.

» READ MORE: Flyers overcome Canadiens’ second period flurry to win, 5-4, in a shootout

Flyers lore has “The Shift” from former captain Mike Richards. Maybe this one should be “The Second Shift” because, while Sean Couturier was being humble after the game, the captain’s play on the second shift of the game set the tone for what the Flyers needed to do for the night.

“The first goal was kind of what we’ve been trying to get better at, guys in front of the net with shots, and just got some good momentum going on the bench,” Trevor Zegras said.

Not known for his speed, Couturier negated an icing call with hustle and then protected the puck along the end boards from two Canadiens, with a third hovering. As the puck moved up the boards to Cam York, who sent a D-to-D pass to Travis Sanheim for the shot-pass to Bobby Brink, Couturier cut across the crease to distract Canadiens goalie Sam Montembeault.

“I was just trying to, I don’t know, play the right way,” the captain said about the shift that led to Brink’s opening goal. “Win a race, win a battle, go to the net; that’s what we’ve been talking about, getting on the inside and getting bodies there, getting pucks from the point towards the net, and there’s just a good, big five-man effort on the forecheck. Everyone kind of did their job.”

Couturier led by example, tallying six shot attempts and accounting for two high-danger chances at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Tocchet tweaked the power-play units, moving York away from Zegras and onto the unit with Couturier, Travis Konecny, Matvei Michkov, and Christian Dvorak, who was recently plugged in after Tyson Foerster went down with a lower-body injury.

That should last just the one game because Zegras ended up staying on the ice and connected with York for the defenseman’s first goal of the season. This time, they crossed above the circles, and Zegras fed a pretty behind-the-back pass to York for the one-timer. The assist was Zegras’ 200th point in 281 career games.

What does the milestone mean to the 24-year-old? “It means more that it was to Cam, like one of my best buddies of all time,” he said. “So that’s pretty cool. I didn’t know that.”

York said he was surprised by the pass, as Zegras had his back turned to him a bit. “That’s the thing about Ziggy, he can find you when you’re least expecting it, so you’ve always got to be ready with him,” he said.

The Flyers have nine power-play goals on the season, and together, York and Zegras have been on the ice for seven, registering points on the same PP goal four times.

Against the Nashville Predators, whom the Flyers play again on Thursday (8 p.m., NBCSP), York fed Zegras on a set play off a face-off win for a power-play goal, and York got the secondary assist on Zegras’ game-tying tally against the New York Islanders.

The pair moved the puck around atop the circles before Brink’s rebound goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins, although York did not earn a point on the play, and when Noah Cates scored on a deflection against the Seattle Kraken, the puck went from Zegras in the right circle to York at the point for the initial shot.

York was also on the ice when Zegras set up Foerster for his power-play goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.

Oh, and York, the guy the former coaching staff wouldn’t put on the power play last season? He has five of his seven points this season with the man advantage.

» READ MORE: Christian Dvorak returns to Montreal having left a major impact on the young Canadiens

We recently wondered whether Dan Vladař was the craftiest move by Flyers general manager Danny Brière. Zegras has officially said: Hold my beer.

The forward has been stellar thus far with 15 points (four goals, 11 assists) in 13 games, including eight points on the NHL’s 14th-ranked power play (20.9%). According to one NHL scout, Zegras looks like the same guy who first tore up the league when he turned pro.

He’s also showing confidence with the puck, especially on the power play. Brink scored his second of the night on a five-on-four after Zegras was in the right circle trying to draw in the Canadiens. They watched him and the puck, allowing Brink to slide out of the bumper to score.

“I think there are things on the power play that I try to do, to try and open things up, and that’s something that me and [Noah Cates] have been working on — actually something that we were working on this morning — so it was great to see one go in like that," Zegras said.

Before the game, Zegras was asked for a scouting report on his good buddy on the Canadiens, Cole Caufield. He ended his response by saying, “And don’t let it go to overtime.” Considering that Caufield already had three overtime winners this season, it was a valid warning.

But maybe Caufield should have said that they can’t let the game go to a shootout when asked the same question about Zegras. The former Anaheim Duck is the best active player in the shootout, converting on 15 of his 23 career attempts for a 65.2% success rate.

He produced the latest of those 15 shootout goals — his fifth career game-winner — Tuesday with some dizzying dekes and a five-hole shot past Montembeault.

“Pretty confident,” he said when asked about his confidence level in the shootout. “I feel like you have to be. I don’t know, it’s just something that [as] I grew up, something I was drawn to. I was a big Patrick Kane fan, and he was always really good in the shootout, so something that I definitely practiced a lot, and it’s been going good.”

“I don’t know how he does it,” Tocchet said. “He’s got about three different ways to score.”

It wasn’t Vladař’s best game. He’ll attest to that. But the Czech Republic native came up big when needed, especially after the Canadiens took a 4-3 lead.

“He could have folded, you know, four goals, the crowds freaking out, going crazy, and you could go two ways, and had great resolve,” Tocchet said of his netminder, who allowed four goals on the first nine shots before stopping the next 11.

With under a minute to go in the second period, he batted the puck away with Alex Newhook trying to pounce. Vladař then made seven saves in the third period, knocking down several aggressively with his blocker. In overtime, he stopped Ivan Demidov with the pad and got Newhook’s snap shot off his paddle before blanking Montreal in the shootout.

“It was a tough, tough game for a goaltender. You know, I didn’t see a lot of action, and if I did, it went in,” Vladař said. ”We just got to reset and that’s what I did after the second, just kind of breathe it through, and focus on the next one.

“I just wanted to leave it all out there and just look in the mirror at the end of the game and just [tell] myself I did everything. And glad it worked out because guys, as I said, they bailed me out.”

It wasn’t a key moment. There were key moments. Plural.

After being called out by their coach for not going to the dirty areas and finding, too often, easy ice, the Flyers followed the coach’s edict that they “want the hard ice. The hard ice is around the net.”

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers dominated the shot attempts, 72-46, across all strengths, with 20 high-danger chances to the home team’s nine.

“We had a team meeting at the hotel last night to talk about it, about delivering pucks more with two people at the net or within reason,” Tocchet said. “I think ... they took the information, and they applied.”