Rising Flyers trim wild-card deficit, top Wild in shootout
Travis Konecny scored the winning goal in the shootout round to give the Philadelphia Flyers a 3-2 win over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
Emil Andrae and Owen Tippett scored in regulation for Philadelphia, which won for the second time in as many nights and has won six of its last eight. The Flyers are five points out of the second and final Eastern Conference wild-card spot.
Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov scored one goal apiece and Quinn Hughes assisted on both goals for Minnesota, which earned one point and has a five-game point streak (3-0-2).
Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar stopped 21 of 23 shots to earn the victory. He made a key save against Boldy in the shootout moments before Konecny sealed the win.
Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt gave up two goals on 26 shots. He stopped the first two shots in the shootout against Matvei Michkov and Trevor Zegras before allowing the winning goal.
The Flyers opened the scoring with 1:25 to go in the first period. Zegras stole the puck in the offensive zone and slipped a pass to Andrae, who blasted a shot that squeezed between Wallstedt's leg pads and trickled into the net.
Minnesota evened the score at 1-all with 11:21 left in the second period. Boldy notched a power-play goal on a wrist shot from the left circle.
The play gave Boldy a career-high 74 points in 62 games this season. He surpassed his production from last season, when he finished with 73 points in 82 games.
The Wild took a 2-1 lead with 2:10 to go in the second period. Kaprizov scored his team-leading 38th goal when he collected the puck in the slot and flicked a pinpoint shot from the left circle.
The Flyers pulled even at 2-all on a short-handed goal with 12:02 remaining in the third period. Tippett received a pass near the blue line and ripped a slap shot from past the top of the right circle for the goal.
Bobby Brink sat out for the Wild because of an upper-body injury that he sustained two days earlier against the Utah Mammoth. Robby Fabbri took his place in the lineup.