Easton Cowan scored midway through overtime, lifting the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 2-1 road victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday.
After a wild sequence of scoring opportunities for both teams, John Tavares skated up on a 2-on-1 with Cowan. Tavares dragged the puck, allowing Rasmus Ristolainen to slide out of position, and then found the 20-year-old rookie for his first career OT goal.
Longtime Flyer Scott Laughton also scored and went 19-of-20 on faceoffs for Toronto, which has won 13 of its last 14 meetings with Philadelphia. Dennis Hildeby turned aside 22 shots for the Maple Leafs.
Travis Konecny scored the only goal for the Flyers before leaving after two periods due to an upper-body injury. Dan Vladar made 21 saves for Philadelphia.
Just 55 seconds into the second period, Konecny scored from the slot off a nice pass from Christian Dvorak. The goal was the 14th of the season for Konecny, who has scored nine times in his last 17 games after going 11 straight contests without a goal.
The score remained 1-0 until Laughton tied it up with a short-handed goal with 5:56 left in regulation. He raced up the left side in transition, dragged the puck around Ristolainen and beat Vladar with a wrister.
Neither team scored during a first period in which Philadelphia held an 8-6 edge in shots. Flyers rookie Denver Barkey skated in on a breakaway about 7 1/2 minutes into the game, but his shot rang off the post.
Philadelphia managed only three shots in the second period, while Toronto had all seven of its attempts stopped by Vladar. At one point, the Flyers’ goaltender got his glove on a wrister by Maple Leafs sniper Auston Matthews, keeping the hosts ahead 1-0.
Matthews came in having scored six goals in his previous three games, passing Mats Sundin as the franchise’s all-time leading goal scorer in the process.
With just more than eight minutes left in the third period, Philadelphia’s Trevor Zegras celebrated as if he had scored. However, the officials could not see the puck cross the goal line, even after a replay review.
–Field Level Media
