Hurricanes beat Flyers in overtime thanks to a goal by defenseman Brent Burns

The Flyers had been in that hole before, down 2-0 early in their Saturday night matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes at the Wells Fargo Center.

Earlier this season, the Flyers erased the same deficit against the Vancouver Canucks and the Tampa Bay Lightning and rallied to victory. But while the Flyers scored three straight goals spanning the second and third periods to pull ahead, the Hurricanes answered for a 4-3 overtime win. Defenseman Brent Burns scored the winner.

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While their games haven’t all been pretty, with the Flyers spending most of their time defending, they showcased a more balanced offensive effort against the Hurricanes. Coach John Tortorella was particularly pleased with the team’s play in the second and third periods, as they made more plays with the puck.

“I think we’ve been on a roller coaster as far as our play,” Tortorella said of their start to the season. “It’s been awful. It’s been good. It’s been just terrible. It’s been really good. It’s been up and down. But the team has found a way to get points. So they should feel good about this point.”

The Flyers finished the month 5-2-1, marking a strong start to the Tortorella era.

Since the season started, Tortorella has insisted that the Flyers will only find success when they begin scoring by committee. While the usual suspects, winger Travis Konecny and center Scott Laughton, have the most and second-most goals on the team with four and three, respectively, the Flyers have received contributions over the last two games from a few unlikely characters, including winger Zack MacEwen.

Known tough guy and fourth-line winger Nick Deslauriers joined in on the fun on Saturday, scoring the Flyers’ first goal to cut the Hurricanes’ lead to one. The goal came as a result of strong work below the goal line by winger Wade Allison and a perfect centering pass off the wall from center Lukáš Sedlák to Deslauriers. Allison later scored the go-ahead goal off another impressive feed from Sedlák, putting the Flyers up, 3-2.

“You see all the best teams in the NHL have fourth lines who can score goals, too,” Sedlák said. “It’s not just grinders anymore or fighters. You need fourth lines to chip in. So we did that today.”

In just his second game back from injury, winger Owen Tippett took a step toward solidifying an identity as a big, strong finisher. As a fixture on the first power-play unit, Tippett and Konecny ran a give-and-go. Konecny sent a return pass from the top of the left circle to Tippett at the bottom, then Tippett shot the puck between Hurricanes goalie Antti Raanta’s legs to tie the game, 2-2.

“[Konecny] made a great play by supporting in the middle, and I knew kind of once I had that pass, I had my guy beat,” Tippett said. “And he made a great look giving it back to me and just put it on net.”

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Earlier in the night on another power play, Tippett showed off his skating and work ethic with Hurricanes winger Teuvo Teravainen on a shorthanded breakaway. Tippett reloaded quickly, preventing Teravainen from getting a shot off on goalie Carter Hart. Tippett finished the night with three shots on goal.

Going into Saturday night’s game, Hart had been on a red-hot, undefeated start, posting a .947 save percentage and a 2.00 goals against average in five games. However, he started off slow in the first period on the Hurricanes’ first goal. Roughly 5 1/2 minutes into the opening frame, Hurricanes defenseman Brett Pesce’s shot from the point took a bounce off the end boards. In his 1,100th game, Jordan Staal gained possession of the puck and snuck a backhander between Hart and the post to pull his team ahead, 1-0.

But Hart rebounded after allowing the first two goals to help the Flyers even the score. After the Flyers went down, 2-0, late in the first period, Hart used his skate and the left post to keep center Sebastian Aho’s deflection out of the net. Roughly 7 1/2 minutes into the second period after the Flyers tied the game, Hart came up with a save on defenseman Jalen Chatfield, who attempted to poke the puck past him. Through 60 minutes and overtime, Hart denied 34 of 38 shots.

The Flyers kick off November with a three-game road trip, starting with a tilt against the New York Rangers on Tuesday (7 p.m., NBC Sports Philadelphia).