ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - After playing from behind for much of this season, the Philadelphia Flyers weren’t fazed when Anaheim’s Pontus Aberg tied Tuesday night’s game late in the third period.
Nolan Patrick scored 21 seconds later, and the Flyers beat the Ducks 3-2 to snap a three-game losing streak.
“We needed to change the direction of how we have been playing, tonight is a real good start to that,” said Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott, who made 23 saves. “We didn’t take our foot off the gas. We kept pressing and we responded really well after they scored the power-play goal. They couldn’t even announce it by the time we put it back in their net.”
Oskar Lindblom had possession of the puck behind the net and found a wide-open Patrick, who buried it past Ryan Miller with 1:51 remaining for his third goal of the season.
It marks the first time since Feb. 2, 2008 the Flyers have defeated the Ducks in regulation. Anaheim was on an 11-0-3 roll against Philadelphia.
“Every time we play here, it is a little chippy and they are fun games. It was pretty open out there today but I was happy when Patrick scored,” said Claude Giroux, who had two assists.
Aberg scored both goals for the Ducks, who are winless in their last six games. The left wing is the first Anaheim player since Daniel Winnik (Jan. 19-21, 2013) to record consecutive multigoal games. Aberg has already matched his four goals from last season.
Sean Couturier and Ivan Provorov scored the Flyers’ other goals. Miller made 33 saves and Ryan Getzlaf had an assist to extend his point streak to three games.
“We were trying to make plays in cute areas. They didn’t really have a complicated game plan,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “They were forcing us to dump the puck. We got stubborn and stopped doing that.”
The Flyers scored the first goal for only the second time this season. Philadelphia was on the power play less than three minutes into the game when Couturier positioned himself at the front of the net and redirected Giroux’s shot past Miller for his fourth goal of the season. It was only the second power-play goal for the Flyers in their last 21 chances.
“When you score first you get control of the game a little bit more. You are a little bit more confident, too,” Giroux said.
Aberg tied it less than two minutes into the second when he fired a shot from the right faceoff circle that Elliott was unable to stop with his glove.
The Flyers regained the lead seven minutes later when Giroux carried the puck into the Ducks’ zone and fired a shot toward the net, where it was redirected by Provorov for his first goal of the year.
Anaheim appeared to send it to overtime with a power-play goal late in the third when Aberg screened Elliott in front of the Flyers’ goal and was able to redirect Cam Fowler’s shot into the net. But Patrick’s goal dropped the Ducks to 0-2 on their four-game homestand.
“It’s brutal. That’s as high and low as you can get in a matter of seconds,” Getzlaf said.
Notes: The Flyers’ have not lost four straight games since Oct. 29-Nov. 3, 2015. … RW Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who was selected by the Flyers in the second round of the 2014 draft, made his NHL debut and was on Philadelphia’s fourth line. … Anaheim recalled D Marcus Pettersson from San Diego before the game and assigned right wing Kiefer Sherwood to its American Hockey League affiliate. … Sherwood had two goals and two assists in 12 games for the Ducks this season.
UP NEXT
Flyers: Continue their four-game road trip at Los Angeles on Thursday.
Ducks: Host the New York Rangers on Thursday.
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