Flyers defeat Islanders, move into 4-way tie for 2nd wild card

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Matvei Michkov had a goal and two assists for the Philadelphia Flyers, who moved closer to a Stanley Cup Playoff spot with a 4-1 win against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on Friday.

Alex Bump and Travis Sanheim each had a goal and an assist for the Flyers (38-26-12), who had lost two in a row, including 4-2 to the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday. Dan Vladar made 21 saves.

“Obviously, a lot of resilience from our team,” Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet said. “[We’ve played] three in four, four in six. I just love the energy, especially early. It’s a tough building to come into and they had a couple of days rest. I thought when they pulled their goalie we handled the pressure pretty good. We used the bench. Everyone contributed tonight.”

The Flyers moved into a four-way tie in points for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference. The Ottawa Senators currently hold the spot, and the Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets also own the tiebreaker over Philadelphia.

“It's awesome. It's the best time of the year, just trying to make the playoffs and just the playoff push,” Bump said. “It's the best time of the year. It's fun hockey. It's kind of the situation you want to be in.”

Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored the lone goal for the Islanders (42-30-5), who have lost three straight. Ilya Sorokin, who was making his 10th straight appearance, made 17 saves.

The Islanders remained in third place in the Metropolitan Division, one point ahead of the Flyers and Blue Jackets, who each have a game in hand.

“It's a tough time to lose three in a row,” New York captain Anders Lee said. "We got to find a way to get some energy, to look after one another and fix our mistakes. Our mistakes are killing us right now, and it's putting us behind in games and it’s costing us points. So, we got to regroup but look after one another.”

Owen Tippett gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 13:54 of the first period. Following a turnover by Mathew Barzal at the offensive blue line, Sanheim skated in on a 2-on-1 rush and passed to Tippett, who moved the puck to his backhand before tucking a shot past Sorokin's right pad.

Bump extended the lead to 2-0 at 15:01, beating a screened Sorokin short side from the outside edge of the left circle.

Coach Patrick Roy used his timeout following the goal for the Islanders, who were outshot 12-2 in the first period.

Michkov made it 3-0 at 2:52 of the second. Brayden Schenn turned the puck over in the high slot, and despite missing wide on his initial attempt, Michkov was able to quickly corral his own rebound in the right corner and bank a shot in off Sorokin.

Vladar made three straight saves to keep it a three-goal game at 10:35. He first stopped a shot off the stick of Simon Holmstrom before sliding to his left and stretching out his pad to deny Pageau. Vladar then moved back across the crease to make a windmill glove save on Ryan Pulock’s one-timer from the high slot.

“I mean, the guys have played really good hockey lately,” Vladar said. “So, just for me, it's just being ready. I wasn't able to do that in Washington (a 6-4 loss on Tuesday), so obviously it's a learning experience every single game. I’m just trying to learn from last game. I was just trying to be positive and ready for the next shot, but as I said, the guys played an unbelievable game today.”

Pageau did get the Islanders on the board at 15:37 of the second. Barzal skated around the net and found Pageau cutting into the low slot, where he scored blocker side after kicking the puck to his stick to make it 3-1.

Sanheim pushed it to 4-1 at 9:16 of the third period. He took a spinning cross-ice pass from Michkov and beat Sorokin under his blocker from the top of the left circle.

“I'll take part of the blame for the first period," Roy said. “I mean, I have a job to do to make sure our team is ready to play a strong game. We're together in this. We call that timeout, and I felt like after that we started playing our game more. We were better in all the categories. We were throwing more pucks at the net, competing better on 1-on-1 battles, and I think we give up, what, nine shots in the last two periods or something like that. Hey, like the players said, it's a bad time to have a bad week, but that's what everybody does, they bounce back. And tomorrow we have a game against Carolina and we're going to have to bounce back.”

NOTES: The Flyers are 13-6-1 (27 points) since the NHL returned from the break for the Winter Olympics. The only team with more wins and points in that span is the Buffalo Sabres (14-3-2, 30 points). ... Barzal became the fifth player in Islanders history with at least three career 50-assist seasons. The others: Bryan Trottier (11 times), Denis Potvin (nine times), Mike Bossy (seven times) and Stefan Persson (three times).