The Philadelphia Flyers will look to continue their road success and give their flickering playoff hopes another boost when they visit the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night.
The Flyers (32-23-12, 76 points) have won five straight road games as they face the Kings (28-24-15, 71 points) in a clash of clubs currently on the outside looking in at playoff berths.
The Flyers are six points outside of a playoff position with 15 games remaining.
Philadelphia’s run of road victories has come with extra effort needed. All five wins have come beyond 60 minutes, the latest a 3-2 overtime win over the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday to kick off a three-game trip through California.
The Flyers squandered a 2-0 lead and surrendered a tying tally with less than two minutes remaining but recovered thanks to Noah Cates’ overtime winner.
“You hate giving that goal at the end, but it’s a Western division (team), so it doesn’t really matter to us. We just needed the two points,” Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet said.
Which is all the Flyers are focused on now with their hopes of reaching the Stanley Cup playoffs still alive.
Winning in extra time is fine by them. Cashing in with a shot from behind the goal line that banks off the skate of a defender and the goaltender before going into the net, as was the case for Cates in his tally, is fine by them, also.
“I think the hockey gods were looking down on us,” Cates said.
The Kings, meanwhile, will return home after ending a five-game Eastern swing with a 4-1 win over the New York Rangers on Monday.
Los Angeles is tied with the Seattle Kraken, who hold the Western Conference’s second wild-card spot, but have fewer regulation wins.
Adding to euphoria of earning a victory that gave the Kings a 3-1-1 mark on the Eastern trek was the ability to hang on to victory despite being outshot 13-2 in the final frame.
“That was big for us,” said forward Quinton Byfield, who collected a pair of assists. “The last couple of games … that we’ve lost, we’ve given up some leads. To be able to hold them off after they got a power-play goal was big for us and big for the confidence in the group.”
The Kings have stayed in the playoff mix despite having not won consecutive games since late January.
While the Kings have received crucial offensive impact of late from the likes of Artemi Panarin (five points in his last three games) and captain Anze Kopitar (four goals and four assists in his last eight games), they dearly would like for Adrian Kempe to return after missing the most recent game due to a lower-body injury.
Kempe, who had 10 points (five goals, five assists) in an eight-game point streak, took the warmup in New York but could not play. He did not take part in an optional practice on Wednesday.
“It’ll continue to be day-to-day. We’ll monitor it and hopefully he can go,” Kings interim coach D.J. Smith told lakingsinsder.com.
The Flyers have gone to extra time in eight of their last 14 games and 17 times this season. The Kings have gone to extra time in 25 games.
