Konecny scores twice, Flyers defeat Avalanche for 4th straight win

DENVER -- Travis Konecny scored twice for the Philadelphia Flyers, who won their fourth straight game with a 5-2 victory against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Saturday.

Owen Tippett and Travis Sanheim each had a goal and an assist, and Bobby Brink had two assists for the Flyers (15-10-2), who have won five of their past seven games (5-1-1). Carter Hart made 36 saves.

“Good solid road win. Everybody contributed,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “I don't think we were overwhelmed. That's a good club that we played against. I don't think we were overwhelmed, and we just played.”

Josh Manson had a goal and an assist, and Ivan Prosvetov made 29 saves for the Avalanche (16-9-2), who have lost five of their past six (1-3-2).

“Despite the score in the game, I thought 'Prossy' played hard for us. We hang him out. He's got us in the game in the third,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “The biggest thing that's bothering me is we're finding the rhythm of our game for 10-minute stretches and whatnot, and then we're shooting ourselves in the foot. That's the way I see it.

“You got to give them credit, they earned some of those, but our decisions on some of the scoring chances against and goals against right now, it just is not good.”

Konecny made it 1-0 at 17:41 of the first period, scoring glove side after skating around Colorado defenseman Jack Johnson.

“It's an undercover play that probably no one really noticed, but [Sean Couturier] knocked that bouncing puck out of the air to kind of keep the play alive. And then yeah, made a great play,” Konecny said. “I kind of thought there was an opportunity that the 'D' that was on me was kind of hanging in, looking for offense, and I went the other way.”

Nathan MacKinnon tied it 1-1 at 18:59 when he snuck a sharp-angled shot past Hart on a solo rush.

“We're not getting enough offense. We're getting it from ‘Nate,’ clearly. Everyone has eyes,” Avalanche forward Andrew Cogliano said. “But I think the other guys need to adopt just a mindset where we could chip away, create momentum. A playoff-like atmosphere, playoff-like style.”

Tippett gave Philadelphia a 2-1 lead at 9:01 of the second period by chipping in his own rebound.

“After MacKinnon's first goal, I think our forwards tried to shut him down,” Sanheim said. “Control the speed as best we can and make him make a different decision with the puck and different option and make somebody else beat us, and we did that.”

Sanheim extended the lead to 3-1 at 11:17 with a wrist shot blocker side from the right face-off circle.

“It felt good. How many times do I get to walk in like that and have that much room?” Sanheim said. “So, happy that I finally was able to pick a corner and put it in.”

Manson cut it to 3-2 at 12:28 with a point shot through traffic.

“Defensively it just seems like teams [are] getting a lot more open looks than we are at this point,” Cogliano said. “I think when teams play us, they play their best defensive game, but it seems like we’ve got to just accept that it might be tight games from now on, and then we could find a way to win near the end or find a way to win in the third.”

Konecny scored on a penalty shot to make it 4-2 at 9:31 of the third period after he was held by MacKinnon on a breakaway.

“We knew it was a great test for us tonight,” Konecny said. “I think it's great for our group, and it gives us the belief that we're a hard team to play against, as well. So that's kind of the way we look at it.”

Joel Farabee converted a cross-crease pass from Brink at 10:17 for the 5-2 final.

NOTES: MacKinnon extended his point streak to 11 games (five goals, 12 assists). He also extended his season-opening home point streak to 12 games, which is the third-longest in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history, behind Mats Sundin (17 games in 1992-93) and Peter Stastny (17 games in 1980-81). … Philadelphia improved to 13-1-0 when scoring first this season. The St. Louis Blues (12-0-0) are the only team with fewer losses when scoring first. … Couturier extended his point streak to five games (one goal, four assists).