Trevor Zegras and Tyson Foerster both scored a pair of goals for the Philadelphia Flyers, who strengthened their hold on an Eastern Conference playoff spot by beating the New Jersey Devils 5-1 Tuesday in Newark, N.J.

Zegras’ tallies give him 25 goals for the season, while Foerster, who returned last week after missing four months of action due to an arm injury, now has 13 in 25 games played. Nick Seeler added his third goal of the season.

Zegras added his 40th assist, and Matvei Michkov assisted on both of Foerster’s goals. Dan Vladar stopped 23 shots for the Flyers (40-26-12, 92 points), who have won 40 games for the first time since the 2019-20 season.

Philadelphia remains two points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets for third place in the Metropolitan Division.

Cody Glass scored for the third time in his last four games, with assists from Jonas Siegenthaler and Lenni Hameenaho on the Devils’ lone goal.

Jacob Markstrom made 14 saves on 18 shots for New Jersey (40-35-3, 83 points), which was eliminated from playoff contention with the regulation loss paired with Ottawa’s win over Tampa Bay.

The Flyers did their damage early in each of the first two periods. Zegras started the scoring just 1:56 into the game. Travis Sanheim’s circle-to-circle pass set up Zegras, as Markstrom could not recover in time.

Just 1:42 later, Zegras doubled the Flyers’ lead on a power-play goal. After dishing the puck to Porter Martone at the Devils’ blue line, he crashed the net to tip in the rookie’s shot.

Zegras became the second-fastest Flyer to score two goals to start a game. Brian Propp holds the record, netting a pair in the first 1:58 at Calgary on Feb. 27, 1982.

The Devils would control the rest of the period but only got Glass’ goal with 7:48 left.

Foerster got his pair in the first five minutes of the second, both coming seconds after the Devils had prime chances.

Michkov sprung Foerster for a 2-on-1 with Tippett. Foerster kept the puck for himself and made it 3-1 with 17:14 remaining in the period.

Foerster’s second came after Jesper Bratt’s breakaway chance rang off the crossbar. Moments later, Foerster started a 3-on-2 with Zegras and Michkov and slammed home the puck with 15:02 left.

The Devils pulled Markstrom with just less than five minutes left. Seeler ended the scoring with 2:51 remaining, registering his first point since Feb. 26 and first goal since Jan. 15.

–Field Level Media