PHILADELPHIA — Ryan Hartman had two goals and Jonas Brodin and Matt Boldy scored 25 seconds apart in the third period to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 5-4 comeback victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.
Frederick Gaudreau also scored and Kevin Fiala had a pair of assists for the Wild, who snapped a four-game skid. Cam Talbot made 26 saves.
Scott Laughton had a goal and an assist, and Patrick Brown, Travis Konecny and James van Riemsdyk also scored for Philadelphia. Carter Hart finished with 33 saves. The Flyers have lost 21 of their last 24 games and five of six on a club-record eight-game homestand.
Minnesota entered holding a playoff spot, in third place in the West’s Central Division, but looked on the verge of losing to the East’s Metropolitan Division’s last-place team before striking for two quick goals late in the third.
Boldy tied it at 4-all with 7:44 remaining in the third. Philadelphia’s Ivan Provorov turned the puck over while trying to pass out of the defensive zone, and Fiala made a great individual effort to win a battle along the boards before finding Boldy heading to the net. Boldy’s shot went between Hart’s legs.
Brodin followed with the go-ahead goal, his fourth of the season and first since Nov. 30, on a hard slap shot through a pair of screens that went high over Hart.
The Wild won for just the second time in eight games and improved to 16-14 on the road.
Winning has been elusive for Philadelphia for much of the season — and especially since the calendar flipped to 2022.
The Flyers were in good position for a victory, though, when van Riemsdyk put the Flyers ahead 4-3 with 45.7 seconds left in the second period on the power play when he deflected Claude Giroux’s wrister past Talbot. It snapped an 0-for-10 skid on the man-advantage for the Flyers, whose 13.8% conversion percentage entering play was third-worst in the NHL.
It also marked just the third time in the last 24 games Philadelphia eclipsed three goals in a game.
Hartman netted his second of the contest with 10:56 left in the second to tie it at 3-all after Konecny had given the Flyers a one-goal lead 5:07 into the period. The Wild center has 21 goals and reached 20 goals for the first time in his eight-year career.
The teams split four goals in the first period in a rare burst of offense for the Flyers, who entered tied for fourth-worst in the league with just 2.5 goals per game.
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