Rielly lifts Maple Leafs past Flyers in OT for 4th straight win

TORONTO -- Morgan Rielly scored at 2:25 of overtime to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 3-2 win against the Philadelphia Flyers at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday.

Rielly, who ended a seven-game point drought, took a pass from Auston Matthews on a 2-on-1 and shot glove side for the win. It was his first goal since Nov. 5 (26 games).

“It feels good,” Rielly said. “I thought we played well within structure and it was a close game, obviously we’ve been in a lot of these recently which I think is good so to get the results is good.”

Matthews had two assists in his second game back after missing six with an upper-body injury, and Dennis Hildeby made 30 saves for the Maple Leafs (26-13-2), who have won four in a row and were playing the second game of back-to-back games after a 6-4 win against the Boston Bruins on Saturday.

Maple Leafs defenseman Jake McCabe left the game after sustaining an upper-body injury in a fight with Garnet Hathaway at 19:54 of the first period. McCabe missed five games earlier in the season after taking a puck to the head.

“We’ll see tomorrow how he is,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “I can’t give you any really news on it. What did I think of it? Well I didn’t like it. I didn’t like what I saw, I’ll tell you that. He’s sticking up for his teammate, and we all really appreciate that, but I did not like seeing that happen.”

Tyson Foerster and Scott Laughton scored, and Ivan Fedotov made 22 saves in his first start since Dec. 5 for the Flyers (17-18-5), who have lost two in a row.

“Other than the first period in pockets when we turned the puck over a little bit, I thought it was one of our better games playing forward, checking time and space," Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. "I thought it was one of our better games."

The Flyers went ahead 1-0 at 3:24 of the first period when Foerster shot past Hildeby’s blocker from the top of the right face-off circle.

“I think I had a rough start there with the first goal, could have done better, but progressed in the game and felt good to win for sure,” Hildeby said. “Nothing really changes no matter what is happening out there. It’s 60 minutes, sometimes overtime, no matter what, so you just have to keep going. It’s happened before, it’s probably going to happen again.”

Matthew Knies tied it 1-1 at 4:02, scoring on a rebound over a sprawling Fedotov. It was his fourth goal in the past two games.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson put the Maple Leafs in front 2-1 at 18:52. He poked a loose puck past Fedotov, who had kicked a rebound into the slot after making a left toe save on Steven Lorentz.

“I worked a lot on that move in the summer, so it felt good,” Ekman-Larsson said. “I saw the puck was laying there, so I was just trying to get a stick on it and I got lucky it went underneath the goalie. So, I’ll take it.”

Laughton tied it 2-2 at 11:08 of the second period when he took a cross-ice pass from Sean Couturier and put a shot between Hildeby’s pads at the side of the net.

“Third period came out and we gave up one scoring chance at 5-on-5, so that’s just really good hockey by us,” Berube said. “I thought it was a gutsy win. I thought that Philly is hard to play against, they’re quick, they’re fast, they play hard and they had legs, so it was a difficult game for us.”

The two teams will face each other again on Tuesday in Philadelphia.

“Another good one against a highly skilled team,” Laughton said. “We shut down the middle of the ice for the most part in the neutral zone and limited their chances. They get the last one there, but we get them again and will try to do the same thing and get one more than them.”

The Maple Leafs will embark on their mentors' trip this week. Among those on the trip to Philadelphia and Carolina is Joe Thornton, who was invited by Matthews. Thornton spent one season with the Maple Leafs in 2020-21.

“I think it’s great,” Berube said. “Great to see him. Special player obviously, great player for a long time in this League and he’s pretty close to a lot of these guys from playing here. It’s great to have him with us, it’ll be fun.”