Flyers' second-period flurry powers a 5-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks

Jackie Spiegel, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Mar 26, 2026

Published in Hockey

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PHILADELPHIA — Good teams beat bad teams. Plain and simple.

The Chicago Blackhawks entered the night tied for 29th in points percentage in the NHL (.472). The Flyers want to be a good team and ranked 15th (.571). To keep their playoff dreams alive, they needed to beat the visitors.

And they did, with authority.

In a wire-to-wire win, the Orange and Black topped the Blackhawks 5-1.

It was quite a start to the game, too, because before it was three minutes old, the Flyers were up 2-0.

The Flyers broke out from their own zone with Jamie Drysdale passing the puck up to Christian Dvorak. Facing pressure, he banked it up the boards to Travis Konecny, who carried it up the ice and dumped the puck into the Blackhawks’ zone.

Chicago goalie Spencer Knight came out of the net to stop the puck behind the net and tried to pass the puck, with his back turned, to teammate Artyom Levshunov. However, Dvorak had been motoring up the ice, intercepted the pass, and fed Alex Bump, who had just come on the ice and went straight for the net to score.

Bump now has three goals in 10 NHL games. The tally comes after he played a low of 10 minutes, 59 seconds on Tuesday in the Flyers’ 3-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Less than two minutes later, Sean Couturier scored for the second straight game off a pass from Luke Glendening.

It started with what Couturier does best: winning a faceoff. He won it in the offensive zone back to Drysdale, who fed Cam York for a one-timer that went wide. And while Chicago thought they had control, the Flyers’ fourth line went to work putting pressure on the Blackhawks deep in their own end.

Chicago’s Ryan Donato played the puck up the boards to André Burakovsky, and he tried to pass it to Ilya Mikheyev, but Glendening picked it off. He turned back into the zone and fed Couturier, who shuffled the puck home. Glendening has three assists and four points in seven games with the Flyers.

The Flyers had a few more chances in the opening period to add to the total, including power play time, but didn’t find the back of the net until 5:14 into the second period.

Deep in their own zone, Travis Sanheim closed out Landon Slaggert, allowing Drysdale to move the puck up to Owen Tippett. The winger, who was flying all night, played hot potato with Trevor Zegras before feeding the centerman a nice pass through Blackhawks defenseman Wyatt Kaiser.

Zegras put a hard shot on his former USA Hockey teammate, and Knight saved it with his arm; however, it dropped behind him, and Denver Barkey potted the puck. Barkey now has four goals in 34 NHL games.

Chicago did get one back to make it 3-1, from none other than Connor Bedard. Skating in his second NHL game, Anton Lundell, selected third overall this past June, tried to spin out from behind the net on his backhand, and the puck went straight to the star center for the easy goal.

It was the lone goal Sam Ersson allowed as he made 25 saves, including a nifty blocker save as he stretched to stone Mikheyev on a shorthanded two-on-one chance after a Matvei Michkov turnover. Ersson has now won four straight starts.

Ninety seconds after Bedard’s goal, and 30 seconds after Tyler Bertuzzi hit the left post on a two-on-one, the Flyers’ three-goal cushion was back.

The Flyers had trouble getting out of their own end until Drysdale picked it up and confidently skated through the slot before getting it up the boards to Bump. The freshman tapped it further up the boards to the sophomore, who, while being checked by Kaiser, fed it to Noah Cates.

The center was behind the defense when he got the pass, deked, and lifted the backhand past the glove of Knight. Cates now has four goals in his past five games.

It’s been a while since the Flyers have scored five times in a game; the last was seven against the Colorado Avalanche on Jan. 23. They snapped the 29-game drought when Dvorak added his own tally.

With under a minute to go in the second period, Tippett used his speed to force Levshunov to turn the puck over deep in his own end, with Cates poking it away. He then pressured the defenseman and took the puck, passing it up to Tippett. The winger drifted backward through the right circle and hit Dvorak standing at the left post for the tap-in.

Breakaways

Dvorak extended his point streak to three games, and he now has 43 points this season. … Defenseman Noah Juulsen and forward Garrett Wilson did not play. … Bedard now has 30 goals and 67 points in 59 games.

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