Elias Pettersson had two goals and three assists and Anthony Beauvillier scored twice as the host Vancouver Canucks halted one losing streak and extended another with a 6-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.
Both teams came into the contest riding three game losing streaks, are well back in the standings, and are trying to salvage their respective seasons.
Andrei Kuzmenko and Phillip Di Giuseppe also scored goals and rookie Arturs Silovs made 35 saves for the Canucks, who won just their second game in the last seven.
Scott Laughton and Morgan Frost scored for the struggling Flyers, who were coming off consecutive losses to the Seattle Kraken and have now lost eight of their last 10 games. Goalie Carter Hart stopped 17 shots.
Beauvillier opened the scoring at 14:24 of the first period, tipping in a knee-high snapshot from the point by Luke Schenn.
Laughton tied it 1-1 just 92 seconds later, deflecting a sharp-angle shot that snuck in under the right arm of Silovs, who was making just his second NHL start.
In the second, Vancouver got off to another strong start.
Kuzmenko scored his 24th of the season at the 1:53 mark, tipping in a Schenn pass to restore the Canucks’ lead. Pettersson did the heavy lifting on the play, dancing out of the corner boards and twisting and turning through a number of Flyers checkers before passing cross ice to Schenn, who quickly fed Kuzmenko at the side of the net.
Beauvillier again showed his soft hands, this time on the power play, tipping a point shot that went off the post and into the upper half of the net to make it 3-1 at 13:35 of the second.
Frost replied with a power-play goal at 17:28 of the second by pouncing on a loose puck in the crease to cut the Canucks’ lead to one goal.
Di Giuseppe rebuilt the Canucks’ two-goal lead when he jammed home the puck during a scramble around the net to make it 4-2 at the halfway mark of the third period.
Pettersson scored both of his goals in the final two minutes into empty nets.
–Field Level Media