Flyers takeaways: Bobby Brink surges, Tyson Foerster on a roll, and a ‘super weird’ night in the dark

The biggest takeaway from Tuesday night’s wild win is that the Flyers, well, won.

After a four-game winning streak to kick-start things following the All-Star break, the Flyers had just one victory in the five games entering their matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. With the teams clamoring for their playoff spot already making a push, the Flyers needed to get back in the win column — and fast.

It wasn’t an easy task without the likes of top scorer Travis Konecny and defenseman Jamie Drysdale, who are each out with an upper-body injury. And it certainly wasn’t easy against a Lightning team that won two in a row against the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders by a combined score of 8-3, two teams chasing the Flyers.

But on a night when the Wells Fargo Center lost power, the Flyers seemed to harness it and beat the Lightning 6-2.

Here are three takeaways.

Speaking to the media before the Flyers morning skate, John Tortorella said he was hoping Bobby Brink could bring the team some offense. The bench boss probably didn’t think it would happen 2 minutes, 22 seconds into the game.

Brink, who was recalled from Lehigh Valley earlier Tuesday, took a pass from Morgan Frost and scored from 36 feet out — on his first shift in the NHL since Jan. 15 — to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead.

“We love seeing Bobby score. Just a great guy, great teammate,” Sean Walker said. “So him, to go out there and get us going, it was pretty awesome.”

The goal was his first in the NHL since New Year’s Eve in Calgary. But while he added some punch offensively, what impressed Tortorella was his all-around game.

“The third period he turns one over in the neutral zone, he stops, wins the battle, and gets it in. Those are the things I’m looking for,” Tortorella said. “He’s going to be able to score. He’s got to learn the other stuff. He’s got to learn how to carry himself. Those are the things we’re gonna work on with him, but you can see that the puck follows him and he has great offensive instincts. We will get out of his way there, but he has a lot to learn in other parts of the game.”

The Flyers won. Yes. But the plug was almost pulled on the game altogether.

As the teams were battling, a bunch of lights and scoreboards and all the audio in the arena went out. Play was stopped with 13:39 left in the first period, and after an approximately nine-minute delay, the game was restarted.

But part of the lights were still out.

As Frost said, “It was super weird” and “it kind of took a little bit of energy out of the game.”

Tortorella said the goalies were asked if they wanted to play, and while he thought Sam Ersson wasn’t totally into it, he didn’t care because the team was up 1-0 and he wanted to play the game. The lighting issues did seem to impact the Lightning more as they looked a step behind for the rest of the first period. They had 10 shot attempts, and just three shots on goal before the period ended; the Flyers had 12 and six.

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Maybe it helped that the Flyers recently played in an abnormal environment.

“Almost felt like the outdoor game with the darkness around us,” Travis Sanheim said. “It then started to get really hot and the ice started to get terrible as it got warmer. Definitely a weird game but happy with the result.”

Some of the guys observed the shadows were a bit more noticeable. From the press box, it looked like it was high noon at times with the elongated shadows around the players. For Ersson, it felt a little old school, like hockey from “maybe 50 years ago.” But did it impact his ability to track the puck?

“Maybe a little bit in the beginning just because you’re not used to it? It’s different,” he said. “But after a couple of minutes, you get used to it and you can still see the puck pretty well.”

Ersson finished with 21 saves in a silent building, for the most part. The audio and music came back in the third period, but not before Tyson Foerster noted it felt “super dead in there” with music. Although Frost said he “thought [they were] maybe cracking a couple more jokes out there.”

Aside from the weirdness, what Tortorella liked was that his team didn’t collapse.

“I think last year we might lose ourselves, get a little antsy when they score and tie it up,” he said. “We just kept it together, got through the second period where I thought they were better than we were, and then had a really good third.”

That third period, a five-goal outburst by the Flyers, all began with a nifty goal by Foerster when he went between the legs to himself to try and separate from the Lightning defense before scoring backhand on Andrei Vasilevskiy.

“I didn’t really have any sense of trying to take it to the net, I was just trying to get it on net,” Foerster said. “You know, I don’t know if it was the lights or not, but it just squeaked in and I was pretty happy.”

Foerster has played three games since missing 13 days with a foot injury. He has five points (four goals, one assist) in those three games.

“He’s playing with more confidence,” Tortorella said. “Those guys, when they start scoring some goals, puck tends to follow them around and they feel more comfortable with it for sure. But the thing for me is he doesn’t forget the other part. He did the work on the walls, pucks out, he’s just a smart player. But, yeah, I think he’s gained some confidence as far as the offensive part of it.”

With Konecny out, getting goals from Foerster who struggled at the start of the season, is huge. Foerster now has 26 points (14 goals, 12 assists) in 55 games.

“I think he’s been great all year,” Frost said. “I think even if he’s not contributing on the score sheet he’s doing some really good things out there. So, I actually changed after I passed it to him, so I didn’t see him make that move. I just watched it in the change stall, actually.

“I haven’t seen him. I gotta talk to him about it — really nice goal. I thought he kind of just threw a muffin on the backhand there really nice goal, he’s been looking great.”