Flyers at Maple Leafs
The Philadelphia Flyers bring some long-awaited momentum into their road game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday. Philadelphia handed the New York Rangers their first shutout loss of the season Friday with a 4-0 victory that also snapped the Flyers' four-game losing streak and sent them North of the Border in a good mood.
"There weren't many guys that were below the bar," Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol told reporters. "There were none, to be honest with you. We played a real good 60-minute game. We got good minutes out of everybody, and everybody went out and did their job, from our goaltender on out." The Maple Leafs lost 4-2 at Columbus on Friday and have dropped back-to-back games for the first time since Oct. 29 and Nov. 1, which was followed by a 7-1-0 stretch that preceded this two-game slide. Kasperi Kapanen scored for the second straight game, giving the Maple Leafs three players with 10 or more goals with defenseman Morgan Rielly sitting at nine. The Flyers swept the three-game season series in 2017-18 with captain Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier scoring two goals apiece, giving the former 11 tallies and 30 points in 31 career games versus the Maple Leafs.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, NHL Network, NBCS Philadelphia, CBC, Sportsnet One (Toronto)
ABOUT THE FLYERS (10-10-2): Couturier (two goals), Giroux and Travis Konecny (one apiece) each recorded three points Friday, with Giroux increasing his club-best point total to 28. Couturier took over the team lead in goals with 10 - one more than Wayne Simmonds and Giroux. Konecny completed his first Gordie Howe hat trick with an assist in the third period after scoring in the first and fighting Ryan Strome in the second, telling reporters: "It's my first and it could be my last. That's pretty cool to have that."
ABOUT THE MAPLE LEAFS (15-8-0): Mitch Marner (team-high 28 points) has been kept off the scoresheet for the last two contests after recording a goal and eight assists during his five-game point streak. John Tavares (club-best 14 goals, 26 points) was minus-2 on Friday for the second straight game while Rielly (26 points) hasn't recorded a point in the last two contests after registering at least one in six straight and nine of his last 10. Defenseman Igor Ozhiganov posted an assist on Friday for his first NHL point in his 19th game.
OVERTIME
1. Philadelphia recalled G Anthony Stolarz from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League on Friday. Stolarz went 2-1-1 with a 2.07 goals-against average and .928 save percentage in seven games with the Flyers in 2016-17.
2. The Maple Leafs' eighth-ranked power play is clicking at 23.8 percent despite going 0-for-10 in the last five games while Philadelphia owns the second-worst penalty-killing unit in the league at 69.7 percent.
3. The Flyers are winning a league-best 55.5 percent of their faceoffs, with Giroux (58.5) and Couturier (54.7) leading the way.