Flyers score first five goals, top Golden Knights to end skid at four

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Flyers scored four times in the second period and ended a four-game losing streak with a 6-2 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Wells Fargo Center on Monday.

Michael Raffl had a goal and two assists, and Travis Konecny and Oskar Lindblom each had a goal and an assist for Philadelphia (3-3-1), which had been 0-3-1 in four games following a 2-0-0 start. Kevin Hayes, Ivan Provorov and Matt Niskanen also scored. Brian Elliott made 33 saves.
The Flyers had scored seven goals during their losing streak, and their 15 goals entering play Monday were the fewest in the NHL.
"We're confident in how we want to play, and we strongly believe that if we play the way like we played the last three games we're going to be successful," Flyers forward Claude Giroux said. "Just because it's not going in you can't start changing everything, how you're playing. We felt strongly that if we play our game, we're going to give ourselves a chance to win every night."
WATCH: [All Golden Knights vs. Flyers highlights]
Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith scored for Vegas (6-4-0). Oscar Dansk, in his first game of the season, made 31 saves.
"I thought some guys on the team competed real hard and I thought some guys were real loose in the [defensive] zone and we gave them too many good scoring chances," Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said.
Konecny gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 4:15 of the first period. Lindblom tried centering a puck to Shayne Gostisbehere but it bounced off the stick of Golden Knights defenseman Jon Merrill and went to Konecny, who beat Dansk high over his glove.
Hayes started the goal rush in the second period, scoring from the post to Dansk's right at 6:12 to make it 2-0, and Provorov made it 3-0 at 6:56 with a shot from the left point that got through traffic.

Niskanen's power-play goal made it 4-0 at 14:24 and Lindblom finished a give-and-go with Raffl to make it 5-0 at 15:19.
"I felt in the first period we had a lot of good looks and we were playing the right way," Konecny said. "It just kind of happened for us in the second there, one after another that just kept going in. It's just getting rewarded for playing the right way and sticking to the systems and doing what we're told."
Vegas outshot the Flyers 18-13 in the second and Gallant said outside of two spurts his team played well in the period.
"It was frustrating because I thought we had a lot of chances and Elliot made some real key saves at the time," Gallant said. "And then all of a sudden they get that second goal and the third one pretty quick after that and things didn't go well."

Marchessault scored during a 5-on-3 power play at 3:15 of the third period to make it 5-1 and Smith made it 5-2 at 13:30.
"It's frustrating because there is no excuse for a performance like that," Smith said. "It's not like we played last night. We've got to be sharper."
Raffl made it 6-2 at 15:38 when he got a long pass from Chris Stewart, deked Dansk and lifted a backhander.

They said it

"We made some bad decisions in our [defensive] zone. It was the worst [defensive] zone we had this year, and last year." -- Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant
"I thought we played better the two games before and we didn't get rewarded, but we kept going and we found a way to win tonight and that's huge to come back like that." -- Flyers forward Michael Raffl

Need to know

Stone had an assist on Marchessault's goal to extend his point streak to six games (four goals, three assists). ... Sean Couturier had an assist on Niskanen's goal to extend his point streak to four games (one goal, three assists). ... Flyers forward James van Riemsdyk had three shots on goal after having nine in each of the two previous games. No player had three straight games of nine straight shots on goal since Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes from Feb. 20-24, 2009.

What's next:

Golden Knights: At the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday (8:30 p.m. ET; NBCSCH, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV)
Flyers: At the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET; ESPN+, NBCSCH, NBCSP, NHL.TV)