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The Philadelphia Flyers are playing their best hockey of the season, but a fresh challenge awaits Thursday when they host the defending champion Florida Panthers.

Philadelphia is 4-0-1 over its last five games with three overtime wins during that stretch. Rookie winger Matvei Michkov has scored OT goals in two of those victories. The 19-year-old Russian has three OT tallies in the last nine games, including Saturday’s 3-2 win at St. Louis.

“We’ve had some confidence with (overtime),” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “Michkov has helped us quite a bit there. Last year, we struggled with it.”

The Flyers have had a nice break since Saturday’s victory, though, so it remains to be seen if their recent momentum will carry over into Thursday’s contest.

One area that could help against Florida is the potential return of No. 1 goaltender Samuel Ersson, who has been out since Nov. 11 with a lower-body injury. Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov have split time in net during Ersson’s absence with mixed results.

Tortorella is grateful for the opportunity to evaluate both of his team’s backup goalies, but he also wants to continue assessing Ersson, who is in his first full season as a team’s primary netminder.

“All this stuff with the injuries, the goalie, our No. 1 guy gone, it gives us an idea of what we have,” Tortorella said. “And that’s a big part of this year and, quite honestly, next (year) because there are no free agents coming. We have to keep on evaluating what we have in the organization.”

Florida, of course, knows what it has in its top goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky. However, the Russian netminder has been out lately while awaiting the birth of his child. He likely will miss Thursday’s contest, as well, which could mean another start for Spencer Knight.

Knight allowed five goals on 16 shots in Tuesday’s overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins that left Panthers coach Paul Maurice with mixed emotions.

“It was alright. I think that’s how we felt about it,” Maurice said. “I don’t think we gave up a tremendous amount. I don’t think we took advantage of some things that we normally do. I’m not 100 percent sure how I feel about that one.”

After winning their previous three games by a combined margin of 17-4, the Panthers trailed the Penguins 4-1 with under 14 minutes remaining. However, Matthew Tkachuk registered a goal and two assists in the third period to help force the extra session before his team ultimately fell short.

“I guess it’s a point that we’re happy to get,” said Tkachuk, who finished with two goals and two assists to surpass 600 points for his career. He now has 603 in his ninth season. “But when we fight back, you just really want to get that win.”

Joining Tkachuk with a multi-point effort was Jesper Boqvist (two assists), while his brother Adam Boqvist was among the other goal scorers for Florida.

“We just know when we go out there that we can wear teams down,” Adam Boqvist said. “I think we almost showed that tonight with the third period. Just move on from this.”

The Panthers defeated the Flyers 4-3 in a shootout last month in Florida. The teams will meet again Jan. 13 in Philadelphia.

–Field Level Media