Flyers knock off New Jersey Devils to cap three-game road trip

NEWARK, N.J. ― It wasn’t the most exciting game. But sometimes, like goals, they don’t ask how wins happen; they ask how many.

The teams were blocking pucks left and right — they ate 58 pucks combined with 30 stopped by the goalies — and the Flyers beat the New Jersey Devils, 3-1. Travis Konecny scored an empty-netter with 3 seconds remaining to seal the Saturday afternoon victory.

“We’re certainly not going to get into a run-and-gun with that team. They’re a pretty quality team offensively,” coach John Tortorella said. “We were going to check, but no one would have thought that the shots would have been like this by either team through three periods. That’s the way it worked out: Who blinks first?”

» READ MORE: Q&A: John Tortorella talks coaching Matvei Michkov, balancing winning and development, and more

After a dreadful run in which the Flyers had three wins in 12 games, they are 4-0-1 in their past five. It also was their third comeback win in the past four.

“[We] try to try to stay in every game and sometimes you’ve got to come from behind,” forward Bobby Brink said. “Can’t always score first.”

The Flyers’ power play has certainly had its struggles. Entering Saturday, it was 28th in the NHL and was 0-for-6 in the past two games.

But on Saturday it gave them their first lead and eventually stood as the game-winner. They now have five goals with the man advantage in the past five games.

After sustained pressure by the Devils in which they had six shot attempts — four were blocked by Flyers, including two by Jamie Drysdale with one stinging him — Owen Tippett got sprung on a breakaway. The flying forward did not get a shot on goal but did draw a penalty, taking a slash from Devils defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler before crashing into goalie Jake Allen.

On the ensuing power play, Brink buried a centering pass from Noah Cates for his sixth goal of the season and second in three games — after a 20-game drought.

“Sometimes they go in; sometimes they don’t. Right now, last couple, they went in,” Brink said.

The Flyers kept the play alive with Tyson Foerster and Cates going two on the puck when Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon tried to play it in the left corner. Cates snagged it and sent the pass to Brink atop the crease from next to the left post.

Skating together five-on-five, the Cates line has been one of the Flyers' top trios in terms of puck support, and being around and hard on pucks.

“We figured we would come up with the puck,” Tortorella said of putting them all on the second power-play unit.

Added Brink: “If you give them time, they’re going to make a play and shoot it down the rink. So just got to get on the puck hard, and we turned a couple over and luckily scored.”

Entering Saturday, Ersson was 12-7-2 with a 2.87 goals-against average and .888 save percentage this season. Since the NHL’s holiday break, though, he’d gone 5-1-0 with the league’s ninth-best GAA (1.77), 10th-best save percentage (.931), and was one of 16 goalies with at least a shutout.

But 2 minutes, 17 seconds into the game, with a ton of traffic in front of him, he allowed a shot from the point by Dougie Hamilton to get through. The goal came 40 seconds after Matvei Michkov got his stick on a wide-open chance by Paul Cotter.

“You’re going to let in goals, so you’ve got to know how to handle it as well,” Ersson said. “So just after every goal, just reset and look to the next one.”

And he did.

Although the goal came on the Devils’ first shot of the game, Ersson didn’t see many after. By the final buzzer, he faced 12 more and stopped them all, including three high-danger shots. According to Natural Stat Trick, just one was during five-on-five action. The 13 shots is the fewest allowed by the Flyers in the Tortorella era, now in its third season.

“I think he’s getting back into his rhythm,” Sean Couturier said of Ersson. “He seems to be on his game. It’s fun to see. He’s a big part of our team … and just to see him build his confidence back and play well for us is huge.”

Ersson did allow a goal less than five minutes into the third period, but Jesper Bratt, the goal scorer, was offside on his give-and-go with Ondřej Palát. The play was overturned on a coach’s challenge, giving Tortorella and his staff an impressive 4-1 record.

The Swedish goalie has now won four straight, tying his career-high for the third time.

“He steadied himself, yeah,” Tortorella said about Ersson since the holiday break. “He looks more confident, and hopefully it’ll continue.”

It’s been a year since Michkov scored an even-strength goal — technically. The matinee against the Devils was the Flyers’ ninth game of 2025, and the Russian rookie entered the afternoon with one goal on the power play.

Since he scored two goals against the Boston Bruins on Dec. 7, Michkov has potted two goals in 19 games. His last at five-on-five was on Dec. 29 against the Los Angeles Kings.

But there was no way he was missing on this chance against Allen. Couturier intercepted a Luke Hughes pass intended for Brett Pesce just inside the Flyers’ blue line. The captain sent the puck up to Michkov, who was streaking between the defensemen and he buried the puck.

“You can see it all the time in practice. He doesn’t want to get denied, right?” Ersson said. “So I think you can see that he’s very good at taking advantage of those opportunities.”

Couturier has been Michkov’s center now for five games, and the duo seems to be connecting. They just missed scoring in the first period when Couturier made a pass that no one in the building — including Michkov, it seemed — thought would work.

As the bench boss said, Couturier is involved more in the offense, and the combination — along with Joel Farabee — has also helped calm down some of Michkov’s defensive miscues. According to Natural Stat Trick, the trio had 18 shot attempts, with four coming from high-danger spots, and held the Devils to just eight (69.23 Corsi for percentage).

“I think we’re still adapting to each other, still building chemistry. But he’s a fun player to play with,” Couturier said. “He’s got a lot of offensive skill, can make plays out of nothing with the puck.

“I think it’s without the puck we have to work on our game. I’m just trying to make it as easy as I can for him and defend well. It’s been a building process, but I think we’re getting better every game.”

Olle Lycksell entered the lineup with Ryan Poehling out with an upper-body injury. … Cates played in his 200th NHL game. … The Flyers blocked 33 shots.

The Flyers practice on Monday before a Tuesday night matchup on Pride Night at the Wells Fargo Center with the Detroit Red Wings (7 p.m., NBCSP). The Orange and Black are 1-1-0 against the team from Motor City, with a 4-1 win at home.