Laughton Scores OT Winner as Flyers Down Penguins

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

After waiting 139 days for hockey to return, what was a little extra hockey. A late Pittsburgh goal forced overtime and brought on some 3-on-3 work. 

While the Penguins largely controlled most of the third period and overtime, the Flyers came away with the win as Scott Laughton scored on a breakaway at 2:40 of overtime to give the Flyers the 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in an exhibition game on Tuesday afternoon.

The Penguins opened the scoring just past the five-minute mark of the game. Off a rush, John Marino led Jake Guentzel up the ice with a pass that turned into a 3-on-2. Guentzel fed Conor Sheary with a pass and Sheary went high on Carter Hart to score the first goal.

Midway through the period, the Flyers evened the score. On a delayed penalty call, Claude Giroux got the puck into the slot for Sean Couturier and he beat Matt Murray with his shot hitting off defenseman Marcus Pettersson and going under the arm of Murray.

In the final minute of the period, the Flyers took the lead off a turnover. Evgeni Malkin gave the puck away in front of the net to Kevin Hayes, and Hayes made a move around Murray and finished on the backhand to put the Flyers ahead, 2-1.

Shots in the first period were 10-6 Flyers.

The teams skated to a scoreless second period. Both teams had a power play and the Flyers nearly capitalized on theirs with Hayes hitting the post on a one-timer. Shots in the period were even, 6-6.

Midway through the second, Murray exited as scheduled and was replaced by Tristan Jarry. Murray finished with 10 saves on 12 shots. Hart also exited after two periods as scheduled, finishing with 11 saves on 12 shots.

For most of the third period, the Flyers limited the Penguins chances, but Pittsburgh started to turn up the intensity and finally solved Brian Elliott in the final minutes.

With just under four minutes to play, Elliott made two excellent saves off a face-off, but Jason Zucker was able to put in the third chance and tie the game at two.

That forced overtime, and the Penguins controlled most of the extra session. But it was the Flyers coming away with the winner, as Travis Konecny set up Laughton with a stretch pass and Laughton scored high on Jarry to win it.

Elliott finished with 13 saves on 14 shots in the win. Jarry stopped nine of 10 shots.

Next up for the Flyers, the Round Robin games begin, as they take on the Boston Bruins on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• PIT Conor Sheary (1) (Jake Guentzel, John Marino) 5:06
• PHI Sean Couturier (1) (Claude Giroux, Ivan Provorov) 11:32
• PHI Kevin Hayes (1) (Unassisted) 19:31

2nd Period

• No Scoring

3rd Period

• PIT Jason Zucker (1) (Evgeni Malkin, Jack Johnson) 16:05

Overtime

• PHI Scott Laughton (1) (Travis Konecny, Shayne Gostisbehere) 2:40

Game Statistics