Dylan Guenther had a storybook return to the ice Tuesday for Utah, capped by scoring the game-winning goal with a second left in overtime to lift the hosts to a 3-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in Salt Lake City.
Playing for the first time after a lower-body injury kept him out for 12 games, Guenther scored twice and had an assist to snap Utah’s five-game losing streak. Mikhail Sergachev scored the other goal and assisted on both of Guenther’s.
Barrett Hayton added two assists and Clayton Keller assisted on the game-winner. Karel Vejmelka made 18 saves.
Samuel Ersson, in his second full NHL season, stopped a career-high 39 shots for Philadelphia, which lost its fourth straight.
Philadelphia broke a 182-minute scoring drought thanks to goals by Rodrigo Abols, his first NHL tally, and Tyson Foerster.
The Flyers needed just 2:02 to end the second-longest regular-season goalless stretch in team history as Abols snapped the puck from the right boards by the faceoff circle.
While Philadelphia had never been blanked in three straight regular-season games before this week, the team’s longest dry spell was 199:43 over four games, Jan. 24-30, 2023.
Sergachev tied the game with 16:28 left in the second period on a one-timer from behind the right faceoff circle, off a pass by Guenther.
Foerster’s tiebreaker came just 57 seconds later. He reached the net after Bobby Brink brought the puck into the attack zone. Brink’s cross-ice pass hit Sean Couturier, and Foerster, alone next to Vejmelka, tipped in Couturier’s shot.
For the first half of the third period, it appeared that would be enough for the Flyers as Ersson made several big saves. But Guenther tied it up at 8:40 of the third period.
Ersson made four saves in overtime before Guenther’s last-second blast beat him. Waiting for Keller to reach the bench as the clock wound down, Guenther finally entered the zone and came straight down the middle.
Philadelphia welcomed back defenseman Nicolas Deslauriers, who had missed nearly three months due to an upper-body injury.
As Utah activated Guenther on Tuesday, it also placed Logan Cooley, second on the team with 43 points (15 goals, 28 assists), on the list because of a lower-body injury suffered during the team’s loss to Pittsburgh on Thursday.
–Field Level Media
