The Flyers sprinted, stumbled, and then rode the shootout to another win. 

Trevor Zegras, who had already scored on a slick power-play goal in the second period, set the tone with a deliberately slow first few steps and then a dizzying charge in toward the net. 

Sam Ersson, who had already made a game-saving stop on a 2-on-1 rush late in the third period, remained the ever patient and unshakeable goaltender in the extra round, and then Travis Konecny cut in across the crease and dragged the winning shot across his body to the top-left corner. 

The Flyers beat the New York Islanders, 4-3, on the road Black Friday up in Belmont – albeit quietly under the shadow of an Eagles disaster back in South Philly. 

The Delaware Valley might want to start paying a bit more attention, though, provided it isn’t already. 

The Flyers are coming back home to Xfinity Mobile Arena this week from a 2-1-0 road trip that included consecutive wins over the reigning champion Panthers down in Florida on Wednesday and then a pesky Islanders team on Friday. 

Thanksgiving has passed, the rival Pittsburgh Penguins are on deck Monday night, and as of Saturday, the Flyers are holding a Wild Card spot at 13-7-3, with a game or two in hand over each of the three teams above them in the Metropolitan Division standings (the Devils, Hurricanes, and Capitals).

They’re not perfect, and they’re definitely not a Stanley Cup contender yet, but right now, the Flyers are in the fight of a packed Eastern Conference, and they’re fighting tough. 

They went up 3-0 on the Islanders on Friday, and did blow that lead, but they didn’t fold. They held the line and pushed it into the shootout, which is still surprisingly their specialty now as they improved to 5-0 on the season in it. 

And then a couple of days prior in Florida, they fell behind, again, to the Panthers, 2-0, yet stromed back to take it on Tyson Foerster’s go-ahead goal through traffic in the game’s final minute. 

They’re talented, night to night they’ve very rarely been clearly out of it, and they’ve been hanging around as the NHL’s comeback kids because of it. 

Zegras has continued as one of the core sparks for that, partly because his skill set makes him almost automatic in the shootout, but also partly because he’s completely revitalized his overall game since getting traded to Philly. 

With his goal against the Islanders on Friday, Zegras improved to 22 points through 23 games (8 goals, 14 assists) to keep around a point-per-game pace, and to keep leading the Flyers in scoring. 

He’s brought an offensive creativity to the Flyers that the team has lacked for years, and arguably just in time for where the team is at in their rebuilding efforts. 

But at the same time, in the background, his play so far this year along with his shootout prowess might be putting him on the radar of something few probably expected when the Flyers took a gamble on making a deal with Anaheim for him back in the summer: Olympic consideration for Team USA. 

NHL on TNT host Liam McHugh posed the following question about Zegras on Twitter/X after the 24-year-old American’s opening turn in the shootout on Friday: “Do you consider Zegras for a [T.J. Oshie]-like role at the Olympics?”

And hey, maybe he could be the U.S.’s X factor come February in Italy. 

Oshie, then of the St. Louis Blues, was for them the last time NHL players went to the Olympics way back in 2014. 

Down to a shootout against Russia, Oshie kept going out there again and again for Team USA, and kept scoring again and again until he had the winner that pushed the U.S. ahead and instantly made him a household name across the country. 

Oshie was a good player, but in the shootout, he was unreal, and the whole world found out that day. 

Zegras is similar in that regard, and if he keeps playing the way he has overall in the next month or so before general manager Bill Guerin and Team USA have to lock in their Olympic roster, maybe he could just force their hand and find his way on to it. 

And maybe it’s just time for the Delaware Valley, and the nation, to start paying attention to Zegras and the Philadelphia Flyers.

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