Scott Laughton, Noah Cates lead third-period push in Flyers’ 2-1 win over Red Wings

DETROIT — It took 50 minutes, 59 seconds to build energy and break through Ville Husso’s goaltending, but once the Flyers got on the board, they ran with it to a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.

After starting the day with an energetic morning skate, the Flyers showed little jump when the puck dropped. The highlight through the first 20 minutes was their penalty kill, where they aggressively went for pucks and held the Red Wings to zero shots on goal. Other than that, they “sat back a little too much,” Scott Laughton said.

To add to the lack of energy, the Flyers also lacked execution. The puck bounced over sticks or off of sticks in the wrong direction. They weren’t able to get inside on offense, and they couldn’t keep the Red Wings outside on defense.

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The Flyers were saved by their goalie, Carter Hart, who stepped up in critical moments, and by the fact the Red Wings weren’t playing with much energy either. By the end of two scoreless periods, the highlights had more to do with the scrums than either team’s play. But the Flyers kept at it, tightening up their game, especially their defense.

“I just liked the way we kept our patience until we scored a couple,” coach John Tortorella said. “It’s not so much stepping up. It’s a matter of not blinking first.”

When the stalemate finally broke, it went in the Flyers’ favor, to the disappointment of Little Caesars Arena. Kevin Hayes patiently held the puck at the blue line before placing it on Laughton’s stick, who beat the Red Wings defenders for a backhand goal.

Laughton’s goal was the jump the Flyers needed, and Noah Cates scored shortly after. The Red Wings pulled the goalie with more than three minutes remaining, and Lucas Raymond scored with 41.6 seconds left, but —thanks to a last-second save by Hart — it wasn’t enough to pull off the comeback.

Hart was the only person who looked sharp from the start. While both teams struggled to generate offense, a lot of the Red Wings’ shots were near the net. They were slow to shoot on some, making the close-range shots easy for Hart to snag. But there were several that required Hart to make athletic plays.

While the momentum stayed low for both teams in the second, Hart had to step up again when Raymond cut through the Flyers’ defenders for a point-blank shot. Hart got an assist from Nicolas Deslauriers on defending a backdoor pass in the third, but even without the help, he was there.

Hart’s play set the stage for the Flyers to take the lead, and it was his move that closed the game in dramatic fashion. Down 2-1, the Red Wings took a final shot. It “fluttered in the air,” according to Laughton. It bounced off of Rasmus Ristolainen and Ivan Provorov, according to Tortorella. Hart didn’t know what exactly happened. But he saw Raymond swinging his stick, so he tried to get his pad in the way. He came up with a final save to seal the win.

With the 0-0 stalemate dragging on, tensions rose on the ice. Any goal could lead to the win. And any perceived slight could set off a round of shoving.

The first period was typically chippy until Ristolainen laid out Michael Rasmussen and was called for an interference penalty. The other players on the ice jumped in before Ristolainen went to the box. The Flyers easily killed off that penalty, but things only got more tense from there.

The first period culminated in unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for Travis Konecny and David Perron. The second period picked up with more shoving involving Konecny and eventually a scrum along the boards that led to a Flyers 4-on-3. Like the Red Wings, the Flyers couldn’t take advantage, and the tie carried on with the second period ending in another scrum.

“We were just playing hard and playing for each other,” said Cates, who doesn’t typically get pulled into scrums like he did Saturday.

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The shot count on the scoreboard looked close to even, but the reality was much more skewed. When it came to generating opportunities, the Red Wings were taking many more shots. The Flyers were just blocking them before they got to the net.

Hart stopped 30 shots, and his teammates also stopped 30. Some were stopped up high. Others were stopped right at the net. Deslauriers blocked a close-range shot along the blue paint in the third. Provorov absorbed a Red Wings power-play shot that sent him to the ice, where he curled up in pain and had to be pushed off.

“I think we talked about it before the game, about getting back to playing a bit harder and blocking some more shots,” Hart said. “They create some energy on the bench and energy for our team, when guys sacrifice themselves to get in the lane and block the shot.”

Hart did not see Deslauriers’ save on the blue line and plans to go back and watch it.

“Everyone’s telling me that I owe him a nice dinner,” Hart said.

The Flyers return home and play the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday (7 p.m., NBC Sports Philadelphia).