Flyers Complete Comeback Late in Regulation, Defeat Panthers in Sunrise

SUNRISE, Fla. — Before turkey and ham fills up your plates for Thanksgiving, the Florida Panthers and Philadelphia Flyers filled the need for pre-holiday hockey on Wednesday night at Amerant Bank Arena.

Despite trailing 2-0 in the second period, the visiting Flyers completed a multi-goal comeback in the final minute of regulation to take down the Panthers 4-2.

Tyson Foerster scored the game-winning goal with 46 seconds to play in the third and Sean Couturier scored an insurance marker with 25 seconds to go as the Flyers improved to 12-7-3 on the season.

The Panthers fell to 12-10-1 as they dropped their second straight game on home ice.

On Florida’s first shift of real sustained pressure in the Flyers offensive zone, Sam Bennett slid a pass underneath a sprawling, stick-less, Nick Seeler to Brad Marchand who roofed the backdoor shot in for his team-leading 14th goal of the season.

Carter Verhaeghe doubled the Panthers lead 5:16 into the second with his fourth goal of the season. A.J. Greer kickstarted a tic-tac-toe passing sequence with a spinning feed off the rush to Aaron Ekblad, who fed Bennett down low before Verheaghje cleaned up the Thanksgiving leftovers on a wide open cage to make it 2-0.

“Our line is playing pretty well,” Verhaeghe said. “We’re getting on the forecheck, getting some action. I mean, sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t. We’re just gonna try to keep it going”

Flyers defenseman Emil Andrae got Philadelphia on the board 7:57 into the middle frame with his first goal of the season. Andrae’s point-shot, which appeared to get deflected on its way to the net, beat Sergei Bobrovsky blocker side to cut the deficit to one.

Minutes after Philadelphia’s opening goal, another point-shot from Andrae was deflected into the Panthers net, only this time it was by his teammate Matvei Michkov. Sitting in the slot, Michkov tipped in his sixth goal of the season, tying the game at 2-2 just 3:16 after Andrae’s goal.

The Flyers had the ice tilted their way for most of the game after tying things at 2-2, but the third period is where they really started to dominate the game.

“I thought we were slow with the puck,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said of his team’s effort in the third. “I think they got in on some pucks, and we were just late getting to some loose pucks that were laying around and they maintained that control.”

With the Panthers pinned in their zone late in the game, the Flyers capitalized, and eventually won the game thanks to a situation where both of Florida’s defensemen were basically out of the play.

First, Gustav Forsling broke his stick. Then moments later, his partner Aaron Ekblad was laboring on the ice in pain after taking a puck to his left ankle.

Amid the chaos of Florida’s disadvantage, Tyson Foerster beamed what would be the game-winner past Bobrovsky, putting the Flyers up 3-2 with 46 seconds left in regulation.

Flyers captain Sean Couturier buried any hope of a Panthers comeback 21 seconds later after he put away a back-door feed from Christian Dvorak, giving his team a 4-2 cushion before Florida could attempt to pull their goalie for an extra attacker.

“We played well enough to win tonight,” Panthers defenseman Seth Jones said. But it sucks that we couldn’t get one more before they did.”

PANTHERS NOTES

Defenseman Gustav Forsling skated in his 500th career NHL game on Wednesday. Of the 500 games, 378 were with the Panthers. The 29-year-old Swede spent the majority of his six years in Florida as their top defenseman, putting up 177 points (50 goals, 127 assists), while being a mind-boggling +172.

There was no update on defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who appeared to get injured after blocking a shot on his left ankle. The play happened with less than a minute left in the game, so it wasn’t a surprise that there wasn’t an update on him.

‘I don’t know yet,” Paul Maurice responded when asked if there was any concern for Ekblad. “We’ll see after.”

What’s Next

None of the 32 NHL teams will be in action on Thursday due to a one-day Thanksgiving break.

Florida will be in action on Friday afternoon as they’ll play host to the Calgary Flames (8-14-3). Puck drop will be at 4 p.m. ET at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise.