Rielly, Leafs Score 4 in 3rd to Down Flyers

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

For two periods, the Flyers held their own against the Toronto Maple Leafs, even rallying back after a couple of fluky goals. In "win a period, win a game" mode, the Flyers bended and broke in what was a four-goal period for the Leafs.

Auston Matthews scored his 51st goal of the season and Morgan Rielly had three points as the Leafs finished off a 6-3 decision on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Center. 

The Flyers opened the game with a 5-0 lead in shots and finished things off with an 11-6 lead through 20 minutes. There were no goals, but several good scoring chances at both ends.

It took 3:56 of the second for the Flyers to open things up on the scoreboard. A nice passing play resulted in a cross-crease set-up from Ivan Provorov to Kevin Hayes, who buried the backdoor chance for his eighth goal of the season to make it 1-0.

The Leafs answered back with a pair of goals separated by 1:09. First, Wayne Simmonds got a breakaway and beat Carter Hart with a weak shot that crawled across the goal line. Then, Timothy Liljegren fired a shot wide off the endboards that came back out and banked off of Hart and in to make it 2-1 Toronto.

The Flyers got the game tied up again at 14:33, when Hayes returned the favor and set up Provorov in the slot for his sixth goal of the season.

Through two periods, shots were 24-18 Flyers.

The Maple Leafs took the lead for good at 7:41. Mitch Marner was left with time and space and got Hart down and out before feeding Matthews with a wide open net for his 51st goal of the season. 

The Flyers were on a power play four minutes later when the Leafs added to the lead. Pierre Engvall led a two-on-one and scored shorthanded to make it 4-2.

The Flyers quickly responded 40 seconds later with another goal from Provorov that deflected past Jack Campbell.

But the Leafs quickly got the two-goal margin back 1:24 later as Rielly finished off a mad scramble in the Flyers zone to make it 5-3.

Just over two minutes later, John Tavares capped the scoring off the rush with his 24th goal of the season.

Campbell made 29 saves on 32 shots. Hart made 19 saves on 25 shots.

Rielly had three points in the win. Bunting and Marner each had two assists. Provorov had a three-point game, while Hayes had a two-point night.

The Flyers are right back in action on Sunday night to take on the New York Rangers at 7 p.m.

Box Score

  1 2 3 T
Maple Leafs 0 2 4 6
Flyers 0 2 1 3

Scoring Summary

1st Period

  • No Scoring

2nd Period

  • PHI Kevin Hayes (8) (Ivan Provorov, Oskar Lindblom) 3:56
  • TOR Wayne Simmonds (5) (T.J. Brodie) 10:23
  • TOR Timothy Liljegren (3) (Mark Giordano, Michael Bunting) 11:32
  • PHI Provorov (6) (Hayes) 14:33

3rd Period

  • TOR Auston Matthews (51) (Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly) 7:41
  • TOR Pierre Engvall (12) SH (Rielly) 11:43
  • PHI Provorov (7) (Patrick Brown, Zack MacEwen) 12:23
  • TOR Rielly (9) (Bunting, Marner) 13:47
  • TOR John Tavares (24) (William Nylander) 15:49

Game Statistics

  Maple Leafs Flyers
Shots 28 32
Power Plays 0/1 0/2
Hits 19 21
Faceoff % 60.7% 39.3%
Giveaways 8 7
Takeaways 5 2
Blocked Shots 13 15
Penalty Minutes 9 7
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