After giving up 9 goals, Flyers beat NHL-best Rangers: ‘We can lean on that’ originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW YORK — Standing in the bowels of Madison Square Garden, outside the Flyers’ locker room, John Tortorella admitted the reality for his beleaguered club.
“We’re out of time, right?” the head coach said. “This is it. This can extend it or you’re pretty much done. … I just want to see who can step up and try to lead the way.”
He got some answers.
With their playoff hopes fleeting, the Flyers flipped the script for at least one night. They halted a season-worst eight-game losing streak by knocking off the NHL-leading Rangers, 4-1, Thursday night.
“We talked about how we’ve played this year — not as individuals, but winning games as a team,” Tortorella said. “That was probably one of our better team games we’ve played in quite a while. It helps to score some goals, too. It takes pressure off our goalie.
“It’s good it happens this way, as far as a team game. And we can lean on that for another couple of games here and see where we go.”
It was a total one-eighty for the Flyers (37-32-11), who had just given up nine goals two nights ago in the worst loss of the Tortorella era.
Cam York, Bobby Brink, Travis Konecny and Noah Cates provided the Flyers’ goals Thursday night.
“We’re back to being the underdogs, kind of where people thought we were at are counting us out,” Cates said. “Back to kind of where we feel comfortable. Playing against one of the top teams in the league, everyone’s doubting us and we stepped up and had a great effort.”
Tortorella’s club had been outscored a ghastly 42-18 over its eight-game losing streak. It was the Flyers’ longest skid since last season, when they dropped 10 in a row during November.
The Flyers went 1-2-1 in their four-game regular-season series with the Rangers (53-23-4).
New York leads the NHL with 110 points and is trying to nail down first place in the Metropolitan Division.
Prior to this win, the Flyers had lost nine of their last 10 meetings with the Rangers (1-6-3) going back to 2021-22.
• The Flyers entered Thursday with a 2.3 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to Hockey-Reference.com’s probabilities report.
They came in desperately chasing the Islanders, Capitals, Penguins and Red Wings. All four clubs were in action Thursday night and all four have played one fewer game than the Flyers.
The Islanders hold third place in the Metropolitan Division and the Penguins took over the Eastern…