Flyers players celebrater their win in Toronto Thursday night. (Credit: Getty Images)
The Flyers won their season-high fourth straight game Thursday night, defeating the Maple Leafs in Toronto, 5-3.
With the victory, the Flyers again reached the .500 mark (17-17-3), and now find themselves just two points out of the NHL Eastern Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot with 11 games to play.
The Flyers got out to a quick lead on Simon Gagne’s goal 1:19 into the contest.
The early lead would be short-lived, as Toronto’s Nikolai Kulemin answered with a goal just more than two minutes later.
The teams exchanged goals to finish out first-period scoring, with John-Michael Liles scoring for Toronto at 16:46 and Jakub Voracek lighting the lamp for the Flyers with 1:25 to go in the period. The goal was Voracek’s 16th of the season.
The Flyer scored the only two goals of the second period–Brayden Schenn at 0:54 and Jay Rosehill his first as a Flyer at 15:53– to carry a two-goal lead into the final period.
Toronto pulled within one in the third period of former Flyer James van Riemsdyk’s 15th goal of the season. Luke Schenn sealed the game for the Flyers with an empty-net tally with 17 seconds to go.
Veteran Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen left Thursday’s game in the third period with an apparent lower-body injury.
Former Flyer Joffrey Lupul left the game with an apparent head injury after being checked almost simultaneously by newly acquired Flyers Rosehill and Adam Hall in the first period. The hit sparked what would become a chippy contest.
The Flyers are back in action Saturday when they face the Jets in Winnipeg at 3 p.m.
