The Philadelphia Flyers won’t have to wait long to try to exact revenge on Morgan Rielly and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After losing to Toronto in the finale of their six-game road trip, Philadelphia hosts the Maple Leafs on Tuesday.
The Flyers spent nearly two weeks away from home, traveling to the West Coast before stopping in Toronto on the way back. They ended up going 2-3-1 on the trek, with the lone overtime loss coming in Sunday’s 3-2 defeat to the Maple Leafs.
Rielly scored the decisive tally on Sunday, taking a feed from Auston Matthews and beating Ivan Fedotov midway through overtime.
“It feels good,” said Rielly, who had not scored since Nov. 5. “I thought we played well within the structure and it was a close game. Obviously we’ve been in a lot of these recently, which I think is good, so to get the results is good.”
Indeed, the Maple Leafs have played four consecutive games decided by two goals or fewer and have won all four. Matthew Knies and Oliver Ekman-Larsson also scored on Sunday, while Matthews registered two assists and Dennis Hildeby made 30 saves.
“I thought it was a gutsy win,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “I thought that Philly is hard to play against. They’re quick, they’re fast, they play hard and they had legs, so it was a difficult game for us.”
Tyson Foerster and Scott Laughton scored for the Flyers, while Rasmus Ristolainen registered a pair of assists.
Fedotov made 22 saves for Philadelphia, which continues to play without starting netminder Samuel Ersson (lower-body injury). In his absence, Flyers coach John Tortorella typically toggles between Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov.
“Other than the first period in pockets when we turned the puck over a little bit, I thought it was one of our better games playing forward, checking time and space,” Tortorella said. “I thought it was one of our better games.”
To deny the Maple Leafs a fifth straight win, Philadelphia will have to punch back in a series recently dominated by Toronto, which has won nine of the last 10 meetings.
Of course, that won’t be easy against a talented Maple Leafs team that sits at the top of the Atlantic Division with 54 points. The Flyers hope to one day develop the type of top-end talent that Toronto currently has in the form of Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares.
All four of those players are averaging at least a point a game for the Maple Leafs. The Flyers only have one such player in Travis Konecny (43 points in 40 games), although even Konecny has been limited to two goals and no assists over the last five contests.
“Another good one against a highly skilled team,” Laughton said of Tuesday’s clash with Toronto. “We shut down the middle of the ice for the most part in the neutral zone and limited their chances. They get the last one there, but we get them again (in Philadelphia) and will try to do the same thing and get one more than them.”
–Field Level Media
