Jake Voracek’s late goal lifts Flyers past Canucks, 2-1

Jake Voracek fell to his knees as he fired a shot from the left circle late in Monday’s intriguing matchup.

He stayed there and thrust his arms to the rafters as his shot sailed past goalie Thatcher Demko and into the far corner.

The goal with 8 minutes, 33 seconds left in regulation snapped a 1-1 tie and lifted the Flyers to a 2-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks at the Wells Fargo Center.

Voracek has looked much more comfortable since he moved to Sean Couturier’s line three games ago. That was coach Alain Vigneault’s plan when he shifted the slumping right winger onto a unit with Couturier, the team’s best player, and left winger Oskar Lindblom.

“Whoever is with Coots seems to do well," Vigneault said.

Voracek and Couturier each had a goal and as assist, helping the Flyers pick up points for the 11th time in their last 13 games.

In the three games on Couturier’s line, Voracek has two goals and an assist. He had gone 11 straight games without a goal before being put on that line.

“He’s helping everyone; he’s always in the right position, and so is Oskar,” Voracek said. “They are both real easy to read off of.”

That, Voracek said, enables him to keep his speed and not start and stop so much.

“I feel like I have a swagger back," he said. "If I don’t have a swagger, I think that’s what I was missing. I got the swagger back and that ... attitude that I need to have, too, to be successful.”

“We’ve played a lot together the last few years; last year, especially," Couturier said. “Me, him and Oskar, we finished the seasosn together and finished pretty strong. We know each other. We know how we play and we try to use our strength to our advantage. We’re three guys who are pretty strong on pucks and can extend possession."

Vigneault said Voracek played the “right way for the whole game. When it was time to defend, he defended. When it was time to use his size and his skill in one-on-one battles, he did. And he created room for himself and his two linemates. This was probably one of his most effective games since the start” of the season.

The Flyers, who dominated the last two periods, had a 34-17 shots advantage for the game, but they needed Carter Hart to deny Josh Leivo from in close with 17.4 seconds left to protect the 2-1 lead.

Early in the third period, the Flyers shut down Vancouver’s gifted power play, with Hart stopping Brock Boeser from in close on the Canucks’ only shot during that man advantage.

Couturier scored on a scramble in front, knotting the score at 1-1 with 14:06 left in the second. Voracek kept the play alive by throwing the puck out front from the side of the net.

Like Saturday in a 3-2 shootout loss to Calgary, the Flyers dominated the second period, using an active forecheck to keep the puck in Vancouver’s end.

The Flyers had a 17-4 shots advantage in the second. On Saturday, they outshot the Flames, 18-3 in the second. They managed just one goal in each of those second periods because of strong goaltending by their opponent.

This, time, however, they finished it off.

“This looked a lot like the last game,” Vigneault said of Saturday’s contest. “From the second period on, we dominated totally. We got the second goal, and we needed two big saves tonight at the end and we got them both -- a five-on-four-save and a six-on-five save -- and it was great to see from Carter.”

Demko, the Canucks’ backup goalie, stopped 24 of 25 shots in the first two periods Monday, including four from rookie center Morgan Frost and three from his linemate, Claude Giroux.

The Canucks, taking advantage of a Michael Raffl turnover, built a 1-0 lead as J.T. Miller converted a pass from Bo Horvat and scored from the bottom of the left circle midway through the opening period.

But the last 40-plus minutes belonged to the Flyers.

“Everybody’s buying in, playing a simple game, and getting pucks deep," said Robert Hagg, who along with his partner, Phil Myers, was a defensive standout. “... I really felt good about our game and we tried to stick with it for 60 minutes. I think that was the key.”