*Photo from NHL.com*
Despite a lost season, there's some success being had on Broad Street. Tyson Foerster scored, James van Riemsdyk scored the game winner, and the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Minnesota Wild with a 5-4 shootout victory on Thursday night in Philadelphia.
The win gave head coach John Tortorella his 700th win in the NHL, while the Flyers as a team improved to 3-0-1 in their last 4 games and 4-4-2 in their last 10. Tony DeAngelo's two assist game made him the only multi point scorer for the Flyers, while van Riemsdyk also had an assist.
Asked about the team's recent success, Tortorella said that "Pucks are going in for us. We're scoring some goals obviously. When we were losing some games, we weren't playing that bad, we just couldn't find the net. Now pucks have been going for us."
Starting the scoring in the first period for the Flyers was Scott Laughton. He gave them a 1-0 lead 12:58 into the period, assisted by van Riemsdyk and Travis Sanheim. At the 16:35 mark of the first, Oskar Sundqvist scored for the Wild, tying the game on his 10th goal of the season. Jake Middleton and Frederick Gaudreau assisted.
Joel Farabee scored 7:26 into the second period, giving the Flyers a 2-1 lead on his 13th goal of the season. Matt Boldy scored his 24th goal of the season to tie the game up 2-2, leading to Marcus Foligno giving the Wild a 3-2 lead with assists from Mats Zuccarello and Ryan Hartman. Rasmus Ristolainen scored a power play goal in the final minute to make it a 3-3 game.
At the 13:32 mark of the 3rd period, Boldy found the back of the net again, putting the Wild ahead 4-3 with Jonas Brodin and Joel Eriksson-Ek assisting. Foerster then scored his second goal of the season to tie the game 4-4 and force overtime. It eventually went to a shootout, where van Riemsdyk scored the only goal of the shootout to give the Flyers the win.
Wild head coach Dean Evason said of the loss that "We weren't very good. They were good. We knew they were playing well, they played well tonight. We were loose, we were not firm, turnovers. It didn't look like our hockey club."
Getting the start in net for the Flyers was Carter Hart, who played well enough to get credit for the win. Hart made 20 saves on the 24 he saw from the Wild, recording a .833 save percentage. Hart's record is now 20-21-10.
It was Marc-Andre Fleury in goal for the Wild, who got the OT loss to drop to a 23-13-4 record in 41 starts so far this season. Fleury stopped 30 out of the 34 shots on goal the Flyers had, which was good for a .882 save percentage.
Foligno said of the Flyers after the game that "They've got nothing to lose and you're trying to climb the standings. I've been on teams like that and you can beat some teams late. It's got to come down to character and leadership and understand that we have to play the right way no matter what the circumstances are."
Up next, both teams play afternoon games on Saturday. The Flyers host the Detroit Red Wings, with Hart the expected starter. The Wild play host to the Chicago Blackhawks, with Filip Gustavsson the projected starter.
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