Kevin Hayes and the Flyers beat the New York Rangers, 4-3, in a shootout

NEW YORK — After bending and breaking in the third period the night before at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Flyers nearly bent and broke again, this time against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.

But Sunday night, the story ended differently — a 4-3 shootout victory for the Flyers as Kevin Hayes scored the shootout’s only goal.

The Flyers were up, 3-0, through the first 45 minutes of the game, thanks to goals from Cam York, Owen Tippett, and Joel Farabee. However, the Rangers clawed their way back as Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, and Andrew Copp scored three straight within the final 15 minutes of the third period to tie the game, 3-3. The Zibanejad and Copp goals came within 12 seconds of each other in the final four minutes of regulation.

Roughly a minute after Copp scored the game-tying goal, winger Hayden Hodgson was called for a tripping penalty to put the Flyers on the penalty kill. But the Flyers survived the Rangers’ man-advantage to send the game into overtime.

The Rangers dominated at the start of three-on-three OT, outshooting the Flyers, 4-3. Ultimately, Hayes helped the Flyers to a win, scoring the team’s first shootout goal of the season.

“It could’ve been easy to kind of just shut down and say, ‘Oh, here we go again,’” Hayes said. “It’s happened a couple of times this year. But we didn’t. We battled to the end. I thought we played great, honestly, besides that four minutes there in the third. It was a good step for our team.”

Goalie Martin Jones set the foundation for the Flyers’ success in the first period, denying all 13 of the Rangers’ shots on goal. The Flyers helped Jones out, too, blocking five shots up front in the period. The Rangers managed three high-danger scoring chances in the first period, per Natural Stat Trick.

In the second period, the Rangers turned up the intensity even more, outshooting the Flyers, 19-8. One of Jones’ more impressive saves came when he denied Panarin off the rush less than six minutes into the middle frame. Jones allowed three goals on 10 shots in the third period, but blanked the Rangers in overtime and in the shootout. In total, he made 43 saves.

“We just kept working,” Jones said. “We stuck to our game plan. We keep doing things the right way enough times, eventually things are gonna start going your way.”

On March 19, the Flyers received Tippett from the Florida Panthers as part of the package in return for longtime captain Claude Giroux. For his first six games as a Flyer, Tippett was slotted on the third line at right wing (one assist). While the left wing changed each game, Tippett’s former 2019 World Juniors teammate Morgan Frost lined up as his center.

Yeo decided to break up Frost and Tippett up on Sunday night, putting Tippett on the top line with center Kevin Hayes and left winger James van Riemsdyk, and it paid off. Seven minutes into the first period, Hayes forced a turnover in the neutral zone and passed the puck to Tippett at the blue line. Tippett’s pass for Hayes deflected off of defenseman K’Andre Miller, but he recouped the puck in the slot and scored on a wrist shot as he fell to the ice to put the Flyers up, 2-0.

“It feels good,” Tippett said. “Obviously when you have chances in games before and when one finally goes in, it’s a special feeling for sure.”

Tippett also had a pair of breakaways in the first two periods, but he was denied by goalie Igor Shesterkin.

The last time Hayes, a former Ranger, took the ice at Madison Square Garden, he was coming back from an abdominal injury that kept him sidelined for two weeks. Hayes would go on to play 17 more games before he needed groin surgery to treat an infection. Since his return to the lineup on March 5, Hayes has 15 points in as many games (five goals, 10 assists), including his dish to Tippett against the Rangers.

Hayes had a prime scoring opportunity of his own late in the first period when he fired a a shot from the slot on Shesterkin. He denied Hayes, who tried to score on a rebound, but Shesterkin made a save with the toe of his right pad. Hayes finished the night with a shootout goal and an assist.

“It’s definitely been a long year, personally and team-wise,” Hayes said. “We’re just trying to finish out these 15 games the right way, set a culture for next year. I feel better and better pretty much every day.”

The Flyers head home on Tuesday to play the Columbus Blue Jackets at 7 p.m.