NEWARK, N.J. – Imagine where the ever-improving Flyers would be if Tyson Foerster hadn’t missed 49 games.
In just his fourth game back from arm surgery, Foerster scored twice on Tuesday night and led the Flyers to a 5-1 win over the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center.
Trevor Zegras chipped in with a pair as the Flyers swept the season series from their turnpike rivals, 3-0.
The two points increase their lead over the idle New York Islanders to three points in the battle for the third and final playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. Both teams now have four games to play.
The last time the Flyers swept the Devils in a season series? That would be 1983-84.
Dan Vladar turned in another stalwart effort in goal as the Flyers took the first game of a three-game road trip.
Foerster has three goals in his first four games. Anybody see that coming?
“Guys like Foerster, (Owen) Tippett, they can rip it,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “Tyson gets it off real quick. He’s a sniper.”
If there’s any hangover from the injury, it’s not showing.
“Yeah, the legs were sore after the back-to-back (Detroit-Islanders last week),” Foerster said. “But got the day off, I feel good now for sure.”
The Flyers had all four lines going so the ice time was split up pretty evenly. That helped someone like Foerster, who’s still trying to get his fitness level back up to NHL standards.
“I mean it’s huge,” Foerster said. “We have four awesome lines so it’s easy to do for sure.”
Zegras got the Flyers off to a roaring start, scoring twice in the first 3:38.
The first goal came at 1:56. Travis Sanheim swept around a defender, skated below the left circle and then found Zegras open in front for an easy shot past Jacob Markstrom.
That was his 24th goal of the season, setting a career high.
Then, with the Flyers on a power play, Zegras rushed to the front of the net and was able to steer an entry from Porter Martone beyond Markstrom’s reach.
Tocchet said Zegras, who was traded by the Anaheim Ducks back in June, has been a man on a mission this season.
“Right when he came to us, he wanted to play meaningful games,” Tocchet said. “He wants to make the playoffs. I think he wants to prove a lot of people wrong. He played with a chip on his shoulder this year and I love that.”
For the record, Zegras wants it known he’s putting the team first above his own agenda.
“It’s nice to score to help the team win,” he said. “That was a big two points for us. I’m more excited about that. It feels like we’ve been playing must-win games for a month now. Definitely getting more comfortable.”
New Jersey finally countered at 7:48. Cody Glass was able to steer a shot by Jonas Siegenthaler into the net to cut the Flyers’ lead to 2-1.
Undeterred, the Flyers resumed their offensive push in the second period.
Foerster went right to work.
He scored at 2:46 when he completed a successful two-on-one rush with Tippett, then hit the net again at 4:58. Matvei Michkov assisted on both goals.
Foerster said he had no intention of passing off to Tippett. He’s got a shoot-first mentality.
“Exactly,” Tocchet said. “Martone shoots the puck. (Alex) Bump wants to shoot. You want these guys to come off the wall, get to the middle of the ice and bomb it. For me, when you’ve got shots like that, attack the interior. All the great players that score goals attack the interior. That give them the traits to become really good goalscorers.”
Tippett likes what he sees of Foerster so far.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “You know we’ve missed him all year. He’s put in the hard work to get back in time.”
>A goal for the record books
Martone’s first NHL goal, which was the game-winner in Sunday afternoon’s 2-1 overtime decision over Boston, made him the 38th player in NHL history to score his first goal in overtime.
In just his fourth NHL game, Martone (19 years, 161 days) became the second-youngest player in NHL history to have his first career goal come in overtime. The youngest is Alexis Lafreniere (19 years, 109 days.
In addition, Martone became the first Flyer to score his first goal in overtime. It was also Martone’s first multi-point game.
>Short shots
The Flyers stay on the road and, after a day off from practice on Wednesday, will make the second stop of their three-game trip in Detroit on Thursday. The two teams have split a pair of recent games. Detroit is still in contention for a wild card spot although there is substantial competition from several teams over the final week.
Vladar’s strong season is the main reason why the Flyers’ team goaltending is ranked ninth overall in the NHL through 77 games. Vladar opened Tuesday night’s play with a 2.43 goals-against average, fourth in the league. Combining that with Sam Ersson’s 3.15 and the Flyers overall GAA was 2.88. . .Nick Seeler scored an empty-net goal in the closing minutes.
Be the first to comment