Philly Special: Philadelphia Flyers 6, Florida Panthers 3

The Florida Panthers do not have a lot of games remaining against teams with nothing to play for, but Tuesday’s meeting against the host Philadelphia Flyers was one of them.

While the Panthers were able to hold onto their playoff spot for another day, that is only because the Penguins had the night off.

Florida did nothing to help its cause on Tuesday as Philadelphia broke a tie score by picking up three second-period goals in the span of two minutes to beat the Panthers 6-3 ending their seven-game point streak.

Carter Hart made 41 saves to lead the Flyers to the win.

The Panthers play host to Toronto and the New York Rangers in their next two games.

Playing without both Sam Bennett and Anthony Duclair, Florida got off to a good enough start as Matthew Tkachuk opened things up by driving in on Hart and redirecting a Carter Verhaeghe feed just 75 seconds in.

Philadelphia ended up taking a 2-1 lead early in the second period before Brandon Montour tied it on a hard pass from Sasha Barkov.

Things crumbled from there.

The Flyers ended up scoring three goals to end the second, getting all three within 2:01 as Alex Lyon — giving Sergei Bobrovsky a night off after making 13 consecutive starts including Monday in Detroit — lost his stick on one and was out of position on another.

Florida’s defense certainly did not help on a couple of Philadelphia’s goals either as the Flyers played hard and got a few shots of confidence as the second period rolled on.

The Panthers had plenty of chances in the third period especially when they got a 5-on-3 for 1:08 midway through the period.

After the first penalty was killed, the Panthers pulled Lyon with 7-plus minutes left and Sam Reinhart ended up pulling them within two at 13:49.

Hart had no shot — and at that point had already made 39 saves to keep his team in it.

The Panthers continued to come hart at Hart and the Flyers but Morgan Frost got loose with the net still empty and scored with 2:01 left to finish things off.

— Coach Paul Maurice said that Bennett’s injury from Monday night’s game is not expected to be longterm.

Duclair missed Tuesday night’s game due to an illness that apparently snuck up on him during the day.

GOALS OF THE GAME

• Panthers 1, Flyers 0 (1:15, 1st): Matthew Tkachuk keeps scoring goals for the Panthers, driving in and redirecting a nice feed from Carter Verhaeghe to give his team an early — and rare, in this one — lead.
• Flyers 1, Panthers 1 (4:43, 1st): Joel Farabee fires one off from 45 feet and it gets through traffic and beats Alex Lyon on Philadelphia’s third shot of the night.
• Flyers 2, Panthers 1 (8:42, 2nd): Travis Sandheim one-times a pass from Brendan Lemieux and Philadelphia has its first lead of the evening.
• Panthers 2, Flyers 2 (14:17, 2nd): Sasha Barkov spots Brandon Montour flashing to the net and feeds him for a shot that banked off the calf of Carter Hart.
• Flyers 3, Panthers 2 (16:54, 2nd): Scott Laughton walks in all alone and beats Lyon as the Florida defense somehow loses sight of him.
• Flyers 4, Panthers 2 (18:05, 2nd): Sandheim gets his second of the night as Lyon loses his stick.
• Flyers 5, Panthers 2 (18:55, 2nd): Ivan Provorov scores down low and the Flyers adds to their biggest lead of the evening.
• Flyers 5, Panthers 3 (13:49, 3rd): On a power play and with Lyon on the bench, Sam Reinhart scores off a rebound in the slot to give his team some life.
• Flyers 6, Panthers 3 (17:59, 3rd): Morgan Frost broke out with the puck and waltzed to an open net to wrap things up for the Flyers.

GR’S THREE STARS OF THE NIGHT

1. Travis Sandheim, Philadelphia

2. Carter Hart, Philadelphia

3. Scott Laughton, Philadelphia

PANTHERS ON DECK

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS AT FLORIDA PANTHERS

• When: Thursday, 7 p.m.
• Where: FLA Live Arena, Sunrise
• TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida; ESPN+
• Radio: WPOW 96.5-FM2; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
• Season Series (Toronto leads 1-0): Maple Leafs 5, Panthers 4 OT (Jan. 17)
• Last season: Florida won 2-1
  
• All-time regular season series: Toronto leads 46-35-7, 7 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: New York Rangers at Florida, Saturday, 5 p.m.