PHILADELPHIA – The fourth line of the Philadelphia Flyers (18-10-7) made the difference on Monday night in the team’s 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks (15-18-3) at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Dan Vladar stood tall for the Flyers, stopping all but two of the Canucks 24 shots en route to the win in Philadelphia. Rick Tocchet got his first win against Vancouver since taking the Flyers job this past summer.

It was a pretty low event game in South Philly, with the Holiday Spectacular going on at the arena putting on more of a show than either team. Well, at least in the first 40 minutes.

The Flyers had to kill off two penalties, Christian Dvorak (holding) and Denver Barkey (slashing), in the first period. They did so with success.

A Ty Myers holding call on Owen Tippett put the Flyers on the power play in the first period, but like the Canucks’ chances, the Flyers were unable to score.

It took over 13 minutes into the second period, 33 minutes into the game, for either team to score. It was the Flyers’ fourth line that struck first.

13:13 into the second period, Emil Andrae (9) sent a bomb from the point area, and it caught the stick of Nikita Grebenkin (2), who deflected in the game’s first goal. Rodrigo Abols (2) also earned an assist on the goal.

The 1-0 score would carry into the second intermission after the final 6:47 of the period was as low-event as the beginning of the game.

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Not so low event after all

In the third period, it looked as if the game was going to remain low scoring.

However, just under six minutes into the final frame, Philadelphia’s fourth line would do it again. Grebenkin (2) made a great play to put Carl Grundstrom (4) on the doorstep, and Grundstrom buried the look. Abols (3) picked up his second assist of the night.

Leading 2-0, the Flyers had their first comfortable lead, but it did not take long for them to grow it. Less than two minutes later, Christian Dvorak (8) was in the right place at the right time to get his stick on a bouncing puck and put it past Thatcher Demko. Trevor Zegras (21) picked up the primary assist after his shot deflected off Demko, then bounced back towards the goal off the glass. Travis Konecny (21) got the secondary helper on the play.

The primary assist extended Zegras’ point streak to eight games.

Vancouver finally got on the board a touch over five minutes later as Conor Garland (13) fed Max Sasson (8) on the rush, and beat Vladar to avoid the shutout.

The Canucks scored one more time, with 17. 3 seconds left, as Drew O’Connor (8) scored the team’s second goal, but it was not enough.

Philly tacked on two more scores before the game ended. Owen Tippett (11) sent Tom Willander flying with a nasty move in the neutral zone that led to a breakaway goal, assisted by Cam York (13). Matvei Michkov (9) scored on the empty net from the neutral zone, assisted by Noah Cates (11) bringing the game to its 5-2 final.

What’s next for the Flyers

The Flyers will head to Chicago for one last game before the Holiday break, when they take on the Blackhawks at the United Center. Puck drop is at 9:00 p.m. EST.

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