Back when the Flyers traded franchise icon Claude Giroux to Florida for Owen Tippett, they were hoping Tippett would one day develop into that same kind of star player.<\/p>\n
That day may have arrived.<\/p>\n
Tippett is enjoying perhaps his best season with the Flyers and he showed why on Saturday night, scoring his third career hat trick \u2014 and his team needed all of three goals \u2014 as he led the Flyers to a 5-3 win over the Red Wings at Detroit\u2019s Little Caesars Arena.<\/p>\n
It was the Flyers\u2019 eighth straight road victory, tying a team record. The standard was initially set between Dec. 22, 1982 and Jan. 16, 1983.<\/p>\n
Tippett scored in all three periods, his second one giving him 26 (he now has 27) for the season and allowing him to move past Travis Konecny for the team lead.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, for the first 53 minutes goaltender Dan Vladar turned in one of his top performances, only losing a shutout with 6:17 to play on a Mason Appleton goal. But then Detroit quickly added two more goals and things got very interesting.<\/p>\n
Sean Couturier ended the drama with an empty-net goal.<\/p>\n
Before the late-game angst, the second goal by Tippett appeared to give the Flyers some breathing room. He connected at 12:22 of the second period, finishing off a play with Denver Barkey. His five-hole shot trickled through goalie John Gibson\u2019s pads.<\/p>\n
Tippett got the Flyers off to a 1-0 lead just 4:07 into the game. Using a Trevor Zegras pass off a Detroit turnover, Tippett broke in alone on Gibson and wound up hitting the back of the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I was just trying to see what opens up,\u201d Tippett said during a first intermission interview televised on ABC-TV. \u201cI had a little more time than I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tippett was asked what the Flyers\u2019 mindset is now that the season has come down to 10 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne shift, one period, one game at a time,\u201d Tippett said. \u201cControlling what we can control. It\u2019s all in our locker room. Just taking it game by game.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Tippett\u2019s second goal, the Flyers scored a rare power-play goal with Noah Cates jamming the puck under Gibson\u2019s arm during a pileup in front.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust getting pucks to the net,\u201d said Cates, who has five goals in his last six games. \u201cGetting bodies there. Playing hard for each other. The culture here has been great. Since the Olympic break, we\u2019ve really got down to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Flyers were just one-for-27 on the power play in recent action prior to Cates\u2019 goal.<\/p>\n
Tippett\u2019s third goal also came on the power play, this one at 7:19 of the third. He rushed down the right side, beat Gibson short side and sent the goaltender to the showers in favor of ex-Flyer netminder Cam Talbot.<\/p>\n
York hits milestone<\/p>\n
Cam York, who recently recorded his 100th NHL point, played in his 300th NHL game on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Short shots<\/p>\n
It\u2019s back to action in a hurry for the Flyers, who return to Philadelphia on Sunday night for a game against the Dallas Stars . . .\u00a0 The Flyers scored first for just the 26th time this season. That\u2019s the fewest in the NHL . . . Michigan State lost to Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament on Saturday, so Flyers\u2019 No. 1 draft pick Porter Martone is free to sign a pro contract when he\u2019s ready to do so. Martone finished with 25 goals, second in the United States . . . Detroit thought it had scored with 1:24 to play in the second but Flyers challenged, claiming offside, and won it . . . Couturier\u2019s 10th goal gives him 12 such seasons, fourth on the Flyers\u2019 alltime list.<\/p>\n
Wayne Fish is a freelance writer. www.flyingfishhockey.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back when the Flyers traded franchise icon Claude Giroux to Florida for Owen Tippett, they were hoping Tippett…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5101],"tags":[599,93,5137,5,4,56,3358,5138,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-529468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-red-wings","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-red-wings","10":"tag-detroitredwings","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","14":"tag-red-wings","15":"tag-redwings","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116313143751033900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}