Nine straight losses to open a season will teach a building to expect the worst, so forgive the Xfinity Mobile Arena crowd if it spent the third period on Monday night waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did. Matvei Michkov scored twice, Trevor Zegras assisted on three goals, and the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 — a team that arrived averaging 4.50 goals per game — for their second consecutive win, two nights after finally snapping a season-opening nine-game losing streak. The recaps from NHL.com and NBC Sports Philadelphia tell the same story from both benches: a depleted home team, missing five key players and dressing eight skaters with fewer than 100 NHL games, out-worked and out-finished one of the league's most dangerous attacks. Youth is supposed to be an excuse. On Monday it was the reason.
Michkov set the tone early, and he set it on the power play. At 7:41 of the first period, the young Russian winger took his spot in the right circle — his office, increasingly, in this league — and beat Colorado's coverage for the opening goal. Joseph Woll, who finished with 24 saves on 26 shots, made the lead stand up through a first period in which Mackenzie Blackwood was arguably the busier and better story at the other end: Colorado's goaltender kept the Avalanche in the game with a string of big early saves on Zegras, Sean Couturier and Noel Acciari, the kind of stops that usually announce a road win is coming. Instead they only delayed the Flyers' night. When a short-handed, short-rostered team survives its opponent's best push in the first period and skates off leading, something shifts in the building. You could hear it.
Michkov again, then the Avalanche remember who they are
The second period was the game's argument in miniature. At 12:22, Michkov scored his second of the night — this one from the point, through traffic, the sort of goal that needs a screen, a lane and a little bit of luck all at once — to make it 2-0. Two goals for the kid, three assists eventually for Zegras, and the Flyers were twenty good minutes from a statement. Colorado, being Colorado, answered before the intermission: Martin Necas scored his fifth of the season at 17:52 of the second, with an assist to Devon Toews that carried a little franchise history — it was Toews' 207th assist, tying John-Michael Liles for the third-most by a defenseman in Avalanche history. Artturi Lehkonen and Fedor Svechkov and Sam Malinski all found the scoresheet with helpers on the night as well, a reminder that even on an off evening this roster generates offense from everywhere.
And still, the third period belonged to Philadelphia's nerve. At 6:32, Acciari — the same Acciari Blackwood had robbed in the first — got his deflection at the net front to restore the two-goal cushion at 3-1, the hardest-working goal of the night from the hardest-working line on the ice. Colorado cut it to 3-2 at 14:40 on a goal from T.J. Hughes, and the final five minutes were exactly what a young team is supposed to fail at: protecting a one-goal lead against a desperate, star-heavy opponent with the goalie pulled and the building holding its breath. The Flyers did not fail. Woll closed the door, the defense blocked what it had to block, and the horn produced the loudest sound this arena has made all season — because it was only the second win, and because of who it came against.
What two wins change — and what they don't
Let's be honest about the standings, because the standings are honest about the Flyers: 2-6-3 is still a hole. Colorado leaves at 5-3-1, annoyed but fine. Nobody is handing Philadelphia anything in October for beating a good team at home. But context is the whole story here. This is a roster missing five key players, leaning on eight skaters who have not yet played 100 NHL games, that started the season 0-for-9 in the win column and looked, frankly, like it might stay there a while. Two nights ago it finally won one. On Monday it won the harder one — against an opponent scoring four and a half goals a night — by getting a star turn from its young franchise winger, a three-assist masterpiece from Zegras, and 24 saves from Woll. That is not a fluke profile. That is a formula, if the kids can repeat it.
The teams will see each other again on March 9 in Denver, where the Avalanche will presumably be healthier in spirit if not in body and considerably less charitable. For now, though, the Flyers get to enjoy the strangest feeling in sports: a two-game winning streak that feels like a season turning. Michkov's two goals will lead every highlight package, as they should — the power-play snipe from the circle and the point shot through traffic were the two moments of genuine class in a game full of effort. But the Flyers' staff will show the third period in film study: the blocked lanes, the managed puck, the lead protected by teenagers and call-ups against Necas and company. Effort is a cliché right up until it beats a team averaging 4.50 goals a game. Then it is a result. More from a busy Monday night in the league is on our sports front, and you can follow every Flyers development in the newsroom.
