Flyers takeaways from Scott Laughton’s four-goal game: No. 100 for ‘one of the best teammates’

Scott Laughton notched every goal for the Flyers in their 4-1 win against the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center.

Here are four reasons each goal was important.

When asked by Jason Myrtetus on 97.5 The Fanatic what the key was to being better at home during the first intermission, Laughton said “simplicity” before adding that they need to “continue to throw pucks at the net.”

Mission accomplished on both fronts.

The thing is, before Laughton let one rip on a breakaway after an errant Simon Edvinsson pass to an open left point sent him on his way, Red Wings goalie Cam Talbot was stopping everything his former team was throwing at him. Talbot stoned Matvei Michkov’s one-timer from the right faceoff circle, made a key save on Joel Farabee off an odd-man rush, and stopped Sean Couturier on a breakaway.

“I think Laughts said the [heck] with this, I’m just going to drive this thing, and that’s what he did,” said coach John Tortorella.

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“I saw a couple of them,” Laughton said when asked if he went with the slapshot after seeing his teammates stymied on their chances. “To be honest, I’ve been waiting for my chance in the shootout and I was going to let one fly, so it’s been in my head for about two, three weeks now so I was thinking slapper the whole way down.”

Take note, Torts.

But also, the team has been preaching simplicity — and getting more shots on net — with their game for a while now. The Flyers finished with 36 shots on goal, led by Laughton’s nine, which set a career-high.

“For a Scotty Laughton, you always hope good things happen for him,” Tortorella said. “He’s worked so hard; it’s good and it’s a big reason why we win the game, obviously.”

Tortorella said he didn’t necessarily like Laughton’s line on Thursday, although of the four forward lines, it was the only one to notch a goal. They did allow seven scoring chances at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick, but did not have the worst Corsi For percentage (45.45%). That belonged to Couturier’s line (42.86%).

Although Laughton’s first goal of the night was important to get the Flyers on the board, his second goal was critical.

First off, the tap-in goal at the left post off a pinpoint feed by Travis Konecny was the 100th goal of Laughton’s NHL career. Drafted by the Flyers in 2012, the forward was skating in his 631st NHL game

“I think 100 goals, you don’t look at it really, but I’ve been in the league for a long time and it’s hard to score goals in this league,” he said. “To score 100 it’s pretty cool to me, pretty special. I know it’s not much compared to some guys, but, yeah, it feels pretty cool to get that, especially, the way I did with TK.”

And it certainly felt even better because it was a shorthanded goal. After Michkov was called for roughing off the third period’s opening faceoff — and the Flyers up 1-0 — Konecny and Laughton broke out two-on-one after Travis Sanheim blocked a Vladimir Tarasenko shot from above the right circle. Konecny kept the puck till he hit the right faceoff dot and fed Laughton for the tap-in at the left post.

“I think Laughty has kind of done [the PK] his whole career,” Konecny said. “He knows exactly what he’s doing. I think I was kind of the one that was struggling a little bit there. So it’s just nice Laughty’s been sticking with me and being patient and it was nice that we kind of figured it out tonight. Even if we didn’t get the goal, I thought we did some good things before the goal to get to that point.”

Last season, the Flyers’ penalty kill finished with the fourth-best effectiveness (83.4%) and notched the most shorthanded goals in the NHL (16). This season, the penalty kill has been up and down and Laughton’s goal was just the second by the Flyers while down a man; Konecny scored against the Calgary Flames way back in Game 2 of the season.

Through their first 23 games, the Flyers had the fourth-best penalty kill (83.4%) and allowed just 10 power-play goals against. Across their past six games, they’ve allowed eight goals while down a man and are tied for the third-worst penalty kill in the league (60%) with the Columbus Blue Jackets, whom they beat on Tuesday; the only game they were not shorthanded against was the New York Rangers on Nov. 28.

The one plus is the Minnesota Wild, who the Flyers play on Saturday (2 p.m., NBCSP), are 58.8% effective in that same stretch from Nov. 30 to Thursday.

“Especially that pair, [Laughton] and TK have been awful killing penalties,” Tortorella said “In fact, we met in the office in the morning, I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with that pair. But we wanted to give it another chance because it’s been so valuable prior to this little bit of a struggle and obviously a big goal.”

Despite losing three straight before beating Columbus and Detroit, the Flyers’ structure has steadily improved in the last stretch of games. Laughton’s empty-netter, to cap off his first hat trick since February 2021, was a good example of that.

Noah Cates lost a defensive zone faceoff but was able to poke the puck away from Alex DeBrincat. Laughton then played the American winger tough on the boards, lifting his stick to steal the puck and get it to Cates, who fed Konecny in the middle where there was more space.

As soon as Laughton had moved the puck, he took off down the left wing and got back a nifty saucer pass from Konecny that allowed him to get past the Red Wings’ defense. His hat trick goal was critical insurance as it restored the Flyers’ two-goal lead with Detroit turning things up.

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After Ben Chiarot got the visitors on the board to make it 2-1, they started turning things up. Between Chiarot’s marker and Laughton’s first empty-netter, the Red Wings had five shot attempts in the 2-minute, 46-second span. One of those, a shot from the right faceoff circle by Erik Gustafsson, didn’t find the net because of the thievery of Flyers goalie Aleksei Kolosov.

“I saw the open player on the far side and tried to move accordingly,” Kolosov said through a team translator. “Tried to put [myself] in a place where I could make the save and just make the play.”

“I think getting to know him more and more you can tell he’s a gamer, he battles hard,” Couturier said. “He fights for a lot of pucks. He’s really athletic and never quits on pucks, so it’s just a matter of trying to be solid in front of him, make it easy on him and tonight he made the saves he had to.”

“He’s the glue,” Tortorella said of Laughton back in February. “He’s been our ‘glue guy,’” Couturier said later that month. “Rassembler, he’s someone that brings people together,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière added after the trade deadline in March.

There is no denying his importance in the room. It’s a tight-knit group but Laughton holds it all together. So it was no surprise to see Garnet Hathaway give the puck right back to Laughton so he could bury his fourth goal of the night.

“I thought he was shooting it, he was shooting it in, so give him a touch on that one, but yeah, I don’t even know. I think after the third one it was a blur out there,” Laughton said.

And if you need another reminder of why president Keith Jones told The Inquirer at the end of November that “Scotty is one of our most important players in the locker room,” just hear — and watch — how happy his teammates were for his 100th NHL goal and four-goal night.

The team gave him a long standing ovation and swarmed him multiple times before — and after — he got the belt as the Flyers’ player of the game.

“I’m really happy for him,” Couturier said. “He’s probably one of the best teammates you can have around. So, yeah, really happy he gets rewarded [Thursday night] with that 100th goal and a couple of extras.”

“It’s great. Couldn’t happen to a better guy,” Konecny said. “He’s somebody who does all the little things. He works hard every day for us so it’s great to see that.”

Both Couturier and Konecny spoke about Laughton being a team-first guy, who will play wherever and whenever in the lineup. Couturier said the alternate captain is “probably the best teammate you can ask for” and “means so much to us.”

For Laughton, it meant a lot to see how much he meant to his teammates.

“Yeah, it’s cool. It’s really cool,” he said. “After the third one looking down at the bench and seeing all the guys and, yeah, it’s special. I’ve let it be known that I love it here. I love everyone here and we have a lot of good young guys coming up here that are mixed with some older guys that fit in really well.

“If you’re a close-knit group, it goes a long way. Sometimes it always doesn’t translate, but hopefully it does here coming up.”