The Flyers pounce on the Rangers and secure victory on Black Friday

Flyers pounce on Rangers, secure Black Friday win originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Before any significant crowd of Rangers fans could put together a chant, the Flyers sparked a chant of their own en route to a 3-1 victory on Black Friday at the Wells Fargo Center.

John Tortorella’s club ambushed New York with two goals in the first 4:24 minutes of the game. Travis Konecny ​​​​extended the Flyers’ lead to 2-0 just 1:10 minutes after Bobby Brink’s opening goal.

Konecny ​​iced the game with an empty shot on goal. He has 29 points (13 goals, 16 assists) in 24 games.

“Right from the start I thought we were on our toes, our D was in the neutral zone, we had good pries,” Tortorella said. “I thought as the game went on we played really well.”

The Flyers (11-10-3) have scored at least one point in nine of their last 11 games (7-2-2) and 12 of their last 17 (10-5-2).

The Rangers (12-9-1) are on a season-worst five-game losing streak. With Chris Kreider recovering from an upper body injury, they were without one of their top scorers.

This was the first meeting between the Flyers and New York this season. The clubs still have two matches left, both at Madison Square Garden.

• Ivan Fedotov, who had conceded four goals in each of his last two appearances, bounced back with 22 saves on 23 shots.

In the final two minutes of the first period, Fedotov prevented the Rangers from making a 2-on-1. It was a huge save to keep the Flyers’ lead at two.

“Not giving them anything late in their period is important,” Noah Cates said. “He was great for us. And sometimes that’s difficult when you don’t see a lot of shots and then you get a prime opportunity.”

The Flyers did well to jump on a team that struggled. In the opening stanza, they defeated New York 15-4.

“I think we set the pace early,” Brink said. “From the start we looked ahead, we put the pucks in the net, the momentum was on our side, the crowd was loud, it got us into the game.”

Midway through the game, the Rangers beat Fedotov when Vincent Trocheck blasted a shot through traffic, cutting the Flyers’ deficit to 2-1. It was effectively a 5-on-4 for New York because Scott Laughton had to give up his stick to Cam York and get a new one off the bench.

Fedotov closed the door in the third period.

“A really good win,” he said. “We played as a team, everyone played very well. We played much better in the neutral zone, our zone. We stuck together.”

Aleksei Kolosov was Fedotov’s replacement. Samuel Ersson skated in the morning and missed the eighth game in a row. More about his status here.

“We have a lot of good goalies in the organization,” Konecny ​​said. “We have confidence in all of them because you see them practicing the work they put in to give us that confidence.”

Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin stopped 32 of the Flyers’ 34 shots.

“It was a tough game for the Feds today, there wasn’t a lot of action with the other guy just standing on his head,” Tortorella said. “(Fedotov) made some really important saves in crucial moments.”

• The trio of Brink, Cates and Tyson Foerster were extremely effective. The young third row had a lot of bounce and caused a stir from the start.

Foerster made an excellent play, blocking Adam Fox’s shot and then beating the Rangers defenseman in a puck race to set up Brink’s goal.

“It was a great game,” Brink said. “The credit goes to him.”

Brink appeared to be one of the Flyers’ most active forwards with four shots.

“I thought it was one of Bobby Brink’s better games,” Tortorella said. “Away from the puck, with the puck, there were a lot of turnovers.”

The Flyers needed that kind of secondary scoring.

• Rasmus Ristolainen had a nice second assist on Konecny’s first goal, giving him four assists in the last four games. He also has a plus-7 rating during this period.

After receiving the first assist, Sean Couturier has five points (three goals, two assists) in the last four games. Joel Farabee played well with Couturier and Konecny.

• Jamie Drysdale skated in the morning as he continues to recover from an upper-body injury. The 22-year-old defender has missed the last nine games and will be taken on a day-to-day basis.

• The Flyers are right back at it on Saturday when they visit the Blues for their third game in four days (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).

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