Scott Laughton scored a career-high and franchise record-tying four goals as the Philadelphia Flyers topped the visiting Detroit Red Wings 4-1 on Thursday.
Aleksei Kolosov (25 saves) came within 3:53 of his first career shutout as Philadelphia won its second straight following a three-game skid. Ben Chiarot was the only player to beat Kolosov, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Red Wings from suffering their sixth loss in seven games.
Laughton handled the offense with his fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh goals of the season. He now has 13 career goals in 20 games against Detroit (0.65 goals per game) and 89 goals in 611 games (0.15 per game) against every other opponent.
He is the first player to score four times in a game for the Flyers since John LeClair on Oct. 15, 2002.
Laughton’s second goal — the 100th of his career — gave Philadelphia a 2-0 lead early in the third period. In a short-handed situation, Travis Konecny found Laughton at the last second for an easy tap-in past Cam Talbot (32 saves).
Laughton added two empty-netters to punctuate his career night. First, he tallied with 1:07 remaining to complete his second career hat trick. Then he buried his fourth of the evening with 13 seconds to play.
Laughton’s first goal came with 6:38 left in the second period, when he skated in on a breakaway and unleashed a slap shot that beat Talbot just under the crossbar.
Philadelphia had several other high-quality scoring chances in the second period. Talbot stopped Joel Farabee on a breakaway and also made key stops on Matvei Michkov and Sean Couturier. Noah Cates hit the post shortly thereafter as part of a dominant stretch by the hosts.
Additionally, Michkov attempted a “lacrosse goal” from behind the net during the middle session and barely missed tucking it in under the crossbar.
The Red Wings had a chance to tie the game late in the second period, but Kolosov was ready for attempts by Alex DeBrincat and Marco Kasper to keep Philadelphia ahead 1-0.
Kolosov also made a huge glove stop on Erik Gustafsson with the Flyers clinging to a 2-1 lead late in the contest.
–Field Level Media
