NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Nolan Patrick, Joel Farabee and Ivan Provorov scored third-period goals, and the Philadelphia Flyers beat the New Jersey Devils 5-3 Tuesday night for their first road win.
James van Riemsdyk scored two power-play goals and Brian Elliott made 23 saves as the Flyers came back to win after blowing an early two-goal lead. Provorov, who had an empty-net goal, and Claude Giroux each had two assists as the Flyers bounced back from two losses (0-1-1) in Boston.
“We’re not going to be perfect, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to need our goaltenders to cover up for some of those mistakes, but we battled, we found a way to get the job done in the third,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said. “I think for our group that’s a very positive sign, and we took a step forward and we need to continue to take step forward.”
Michael McLeod and Travis Zajac scored for the Devils, who hit a crossbar and a goalpost early in the third period with the score tied at 2. Scott Wedgewood, filling in with Mackenzie Blackwood in the COVID-19 protocol, made 26 saves for New Jersey. Pavel Zacha closed out the scoring with 1:08 to play.
Patrick made it 3-2 at 7:03 of the final period, taking a pass from Giroux and putting a shot into an open net. Wedgewood got tangled with defenseman P.K. Subban and could not get back into position.
Patrick played on a line with Giroux in his second season, and he likes being back with him when he gets the chance.
“He’s a nice guy to play with, sees the ice so well, makes great plays,” Patrick said. "TK (Travis Konecny) made a nice play down low and I had some room in the slot there and was trying to find him, and he had a lot poise to get it back to me, great play by him."
Farabee gave the Flyers breathing room a little more than five minutes later, putting a rebound into another open net after a turnover by rookie defenseman Ty Smith.
Van Riemsdyk staked the Flyers to a 2-0 lead, tipping a pair of point shots by Provorov past Wedgewood, the second 59 seconds into the second period.
Devils coach Lindy Ruff shook up his lines later in the period and it paid off almost immediately. McLeod got his first NHL goal in close at 11:59, and Zajac tied it at 2 at 16:43 by tipping in a shot from Andreas Johnsson.
Johnsson hit a crossbar and Damon Severson hit the goalpost for New Jersey early in the third before Patrick struck.
Wedgewood said the Devils could have easily taken the two points with a little luck.
“We did a good job bearing down and we didn’t give up on those plays off the post,” he said after his third straight start. “Our guys were still whacking the sticks around the net. But it can go either way. And that’s kind of what the hockey Gods wanted for us, I guess.”
CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
Giroux played in his 611th game as the Flyers' captain, moving him past Bob Clarke for the most games in the role. Since taking over the captaincy in January of 2013, he has played in 610 of 614 regular season games. He got an assist on van Riemsdyk's second goal.
“You try to show up in every game and obviously with the results that we had in Boston, we wanted to make sure that we’re going to win tonight and I feel like we had a step forward from the last two games tonight,” Giroux said.
Clarke had two stints as the Flyers’ captain. He served 498 games between Jan. 17, 1973. through the end of the 1978-79 season. He became a player-assistant at the start of the next season and could not serve as captain. He returned to the captaincy on Jan. 6, 1983 and served for the final 112 games of his career, ending in 1983-84.
ZAJAC COUNTDOWN
Zajac played in his 997th regular-season game. The 15-year veteran is on track to join Ken Daneyko, Marty Brodeur and Patrik Elias as the fourth player in the organization to reach 1,000 games on Sunday.
GHOST BACK
Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere played for the first time this season. He missed the first six games after testing positive for COVID-19. Erik Gustafsson got the night off.
SMITH STREAK: Smith saw his five game-game point scoring streak to start his career end. He was the sixth NHL defenseman to start his career with points in his first five.
UP NEXT
Flyers: Play the Devils again at the Prudential Center on Thursday night.
Devils: Host the Flyers again on Thursday night.
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