Rangers fall to Flyers, fail to gain in Eastern wild card

NEW YORK -- Tyson Foerster had his first NHL hat trick, and the Philadelphia Flyers outlasted the New York Rangers for an 8-5 win at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday in a game that featured nine goals in the third period.

"This building is awesome, and it was pretty cool to get a hat trick in it," Foerster said.

Foerster scored two goals in the third period, giving him 22 in 77 games this season. He scored 20 in 76 games as a rookie last season. The 23-year-old has six goals in his past five games.

"Twenty goals is a nice threshold and there's not many guys that do it," Flyers coach Brad Shaw said. "Never mind his age, he hasn't been given a ton of offensive responsibility either, so for him to do it sort of in a checking-line role is probably even more impressive. He's a real diligent young man, a real pro, mature beyond his years and that shows in his game. Couldn't be happier for him to get that hat trick tonight."

In addition to Foerster's two goals, Travis Sanheim, Jakob Pelletier, Sean Couturier and Owen Tippett also scored for the Flyers in the third period. Jonny Brodzinski, J.T. Miller and Chris Kreider had the Rangers' goals in the period.

Nick Seeler had three assists, and Aleksei Kolosov made 24 saves in his first appearance since Jan. 2 for the Flyers (32-37-9), who have already been eliminated from playoff contention.

"It was pretty wild," Couturier said. "Not sure it's the kind of period that both teams want to play or expected, but sometimes that's how it goes. Just got to find a way."

Mika Zibanejad had four assists and Jonathan Quick made 22 saves, but the Rangers (36-35-7) lost their third straight game and remain eight points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

New York and Montreal each have four games remaining. The Rangers would be eliminated from playoff contention with a loss of any kind against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on Thursday.

"It's a [bad] feeling in here for sure," Rangers defenseman Adam Fox said. "We're hanging on by a thread at this point. But show up tomorrow and try to win a game. That's pretty much all we can do right now."

Vincent Trocheck's short-handed breakaway goal at 11:33 of the first period gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

Foerster tied it 1-1 at 9:03 of the second period, scoring with a wrist shot from the top of the left face-off circle.

Garnet Hathaway's short-handed goal at 16:43 gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead.

Artemi Panarin tied it 2-2 at 18:32, taking a drop pass from Zibanejad, carrying the puck through the right circle, deking to his backhand and roofing a shot into the top left corner.

It was Panarin's 300th NHL goal. He's the only active undrafted player to score at least 300 goals.

"I don't think anybody thought it was going to end up 8-5 after two periods," Shaw said, "but sometimes those periods just sort of have a life of their own and that's where it ended up."

The third started with Sanheim giving the Flyers a 3-2 lead at 3:05.

He grabbed the puck below the goal line to the right of the net, pulled it to his forehand and put it in before Quick had time to recover after making an initial save on Cates at the left post.

The Rangers tied it 3-3 at 5:38 on Brodzinski's shot from left side that deflected off Karsen Dorwart's stick.

Miller made it 4-3 Rangers at 7:01, scoring with a one-timer from the top of the right circle off a 3-on-2 rush with Zibanejad and Will Cuylle.

Pelletier tied it 4-4 one minute later, knocking in the rebound of Tippett's shot from the point.

Couturier gave Philadelphia a 5-4 lead at 11:55, when he found a juicy rebound off Quick's blocker in the left circle and one-timed it into the net.

Foerster made it 6-4 with a one-timer from the left circle at 15:33.

The Rangers pulled Quick and Kreider scored a 6-on-5 goal from the left hashmarks at 18:10 to make it 6-5.

Foerster completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal at 19:05 to make it 7-5, and Tippett added another empty-netter at 19:47 for the 8-5 final.

"I didn't like the way we attacked the period," Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. "The game going into that period, it's in the balance of who is going to decide it. They played a better period than we did. We made mistakes and they ended up in the back of our net."

NOTES: The last time the Flyers scored six goals in a period was Nov. 11, 1993, in the second period of a 9-2 win against the Montreal Canadiens. … The last time Philadelphia scored eight goals in a game was Oct. 14, 2017, an 8-2 win against the Washington Capitals. … Trocheck has a career-high four short-handed goals this season. … Zibanejad had four assists in a game for the second time in his career (Dec. 29, 2018, against the Nashville Predators).