Frank Vatrano’s fifth career hat trick leads Ducks past Flyers
PHILADELPHIA — Frank Vatrano recorded his fifth career hat trick and Adam Henrique, Ryan Strome, Trevor Zegras and Brett Leason added a goal apiece as the Ducks beat the Philadelphia Flyers 7-4 on Saturday.
Lukas Dostal had 27 saves for the Ducks (4-4-0), who are 3-0 on their four-game trip east, with overtime wins in Columbus and Boston before the dominating effort in Philadelphia.
“Winning on the road with a young team is very tough,” Vatrano said. “You want to pay attention to deals and whether it is on home ice or in away rinks. We’ve fallen behind in a few games, but we’re playing good hockey.”
Travis Konecny scored twice to increase his season total to eight while Cam Atkinson and Joel Farabee each added a goal for Philadelphia (4-3-1). Backup Flyers goaltender Samuel Ersson took the loss with 18 saves on 25 shots, many of which were off turnovers that gave the puck to Anaheim in prime scoring slots — which Flyers coach John Tortorella noted when reacting to sarcastic cheers from the Wells Fargo Center crowd in his postgame press conference.
“Don’t blame Sam for this,” Tortorella said. “He’s part of it. But it was easy to look at the goaltender and throw it all on him. Not a chance. That was a team effort tonight.”
Vatrano has eight goals in Anaheim’s first eight games of the season. Saturday was his second hat trick of the season, matching his three-goal effort against Carolina on Oct. 15.
“Goal scoring is a funny thing,” Vatrano said. “Sometimes, they go in and sometimes, they don’t. You are going to have ups and downs with goal scoring. So far, they are going early and we’ll just roll with that.”
His first goal, a sharp wrist shot between the circles, beat Ersson just under the top shelf to make it 2-0 in the first period. Vatrano scored seven minutes into the second when an extended video replay determined a poked shot from the side of the net broke the goal line between Ersson’s pad and glove.
The Ducks scored a pair of goals late in the third period to force overtime before Mason McTavish scored to seal a 4-3 comeback win over the Boston Bruins.
“I wasn’t sure if I got it in on the first poke,” Vatrano said. His final tally was a shorthanded breakaway that went high to Ersson’s stick side.
Strome added two assists after his goal, which started Anaheim’s scoring just 58 seconds into the game. The pairing of Strome, Vatrano and 20-year-old Mason McTavish was a combined plus-4 on the night and created the most traffic in front of the Philadelphia net.
“We’re using each others skill sets,” Strome said. “Frankie is a shooter and a scorer. Mac T [McTavish] is a great up and coming player — he’s going to be one of the better young players in the league. We communicate well off the ice and we work with each other and give good feedback.”
Konecny recorded his third multi-goal game of the season for the Flyers. He was also responsible on the turnover that resulted in Zegras’ power-play goal with a turnover to extend Anaheim’s lead to 5-2 early in the third period.
“We were looking to get back in it, but I had to just kill the penalty there,” Konecny said. “If we hold it there, we have a chance.”
