Five Thoughts on the Flyers 3-2 Win over the Penguins

The Philadelphia Flyers snapped a five-game losing streak, and improved their record to 24-26-7 after their 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday night.

Scott Laughton opened the game’s scoring with an early first period goal. Garnet Hathaway scored what was one of the wierdest goals of the season, and Travis Konecny came up with an important insurance goal for Philly.

Despite taking a lead into each intermission, the Flyers really did not look like the better team for a good portion of the game. They certainly found some puck luck–something they have not had much of this season. They got big saves in critical moments, which ultimatley kept the Flyers in a position to win the game.

Here are five thoughts after Saturday’s win.

While it is an extremely small sample size, Andrei Kuzmenko looked refreshed in his first game as a Flyer. More importantly, he looked more like the player he was in 2022/23 than the player he was in 2023/24.

Kuzmenko earned the secondary assist on Scott Laughton’s goal, but his offensive threat went beyond that. The new Flyer was all over the ice on Saturday, skating with a lot of pace. He showed his slick puck skills, some fancy passing, and his quick shot that can be very dangerous when he gets hot.

Once play returns from the 4 Nations Face-Off break, Kuzmenko’s offesnive ability will certainly make him a player to keep an eye on.

Matvei Michkov logged 18 minutes and 20 seconds of on-ice time Saturday night, which was fourth-most amongst the Flyers forwards.

The significance? Michkov’s on-ice time has significantly improved since being benched, but even more, since John Tortorella recognized that maybe benching him was the wrong choice. In the two games following the benching, Michkov logged around his average minutes. In the last two games, he has played over 18 minutes in each game.

The break will give the young rookie some much-needed rest, which will help him continue to play these high minutes. If he continues to get this much time out of the break, the points will flow for Michkov.

If the message was not already clear, the Flyers have solidified Sam Ersson as their number-one goalie. His performance Saturday night might have been a stand-out for him earlier in the season, but now it seems as if this has become Ersson’s new normal.

The Swedish netminder turned in a 31-save performance on Saturday. He made a number of flashy and critical saves to keep the Flyers in a position to win the game. Head coach John Tortorella gave Ersson an unofficial assist on Travis Konecny’s goal as well. It came during a delayed penalty, where Ersson seemingly was the only one who saw the ref’s arm go up. He skated to the bench and yelled, leading to Konecny going out, getting the puck, and scoring what would be an important insurance goal for the Flyers.

I mentioned that Saturday had become the new normal for Ersson. Well, here is the proof. Since play resumed from the holiday break, Sam Ersson is 9-4-1 with a .920 save percentage. He has a 2.26 goals-against average and has six 30+ save games. Ersson is giving the Flyers a chance to win in each of his starts.

There is never a right time to lose a game, but some wins come at better times than others. Saturday’s win came at a very good time.

Heading into an extended break, it is much better for a team’s momentum to end on a win, especially against a rival, rather than stewing on a loss for two weeks. The Flyers were on a five-game losing streak; a loss on Saturday would have made it six straight. Instead, the Flyers get to head into the break on a positive note.

Out of the break, the Flyers are tasked with an elite Edmonton Oilers team, then a home-and-home with the same Pittsburgh Penguins team they beat Saturday night.

Even though they led for a majority of the first 30 minutes of the game, the Flyers were seemingly “knocked down” after Erik Karlsson’s second-period goal.

One of a team’s most important traits is how it responds to adversity. For the sake of the metaphor, when the Flyers got “knocked down” Saturday night, they got right back up and played even harder.

Sure, the final 30 minutes of play were far from perfect. There is still much more the Flyers have to improve upon. But for what it’s worth, the Flyers took Karlsson’s goal as a wake-up call, and things turned around after that.

The Flyers were heavily out-chanced in the first 30 minutes but turned it around a little after the halfway point of the second period. They were generating much more offense, settled down on defense, and improved their puck possession. They finally started to give Ersson help, stopping the Penguins from having even more chances.

Playoffs are still a far cry, but seeing some bounce back and fight in this team can be sign of things to come in the future.