Easton Cowan scored his first NHL goal, helping the Maple Leafs defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 5-2 at the Xfinity Mobile Arena Saturday night.
While they might have been relegated to side-eye viewing on a smaller screen, with the majority of their fans focused on the Blue Jays’ plight, the Maple Leafs produced one of their better performances of the season.
The game did not start in Toronto’s favour, as the Flyers jumped out to an early lead on Christian Dvorak’s third goal of the season at the 1:09 mark. A turnover in the offensive end led to a Flyers’ rush along the boards. Former Leaf, Nikita Grebenkin, outraced Chris Tanev, flipped the puck out in front of the net to Dvorak, who buried the puck past goaltender Anthony Stolarz.
Toronto answered about five minutes later. Morgan Riley fired a shot to the net that Tyson Foerster blocked with his ankle. The Flyer defenceman crumbled to the ground, allowing Auston Matthews enough time and space to snipe a high blocker side shot past Philadelphia net-minder Dan Vladar to tie the game 1-1.
The Flyers nearly retook the lead in the second. A Trevor Zegras power play chance rang both posts before falling under the pads of Stolarz. The close call must have woken up the Maple Leafs, who responded with two middle-period goals.
Jake McCabe flipped a seeing-eye goal through a screen in front of Vladar to make it 2-1. Then in the waning minutes of the period, Nicholas Robertson padded the Toronto lead, wiring a shot glove side and by Vladar to make it 3-1.
A half-minute into the third, John Tavares won a centre ice battle, skated to the corner, and swung a pass to a racing Easton Cowan who beat Vladar for his first goal.
Foerster managed a power-play goal for the Flyers with about four minutes left to make it 4-2, but Calle Jarnkrok found the empty net with 18 seconds left to seal the 5-2 victory.
The Maple Leafs’ next game is Monday against Pittsburgh at the ScotiaBank Arena.
