Avs rush past Flyers, 7-4 | Pro Hockey News

PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers ran into a buzz saw on Saturday afternoon in a 7-4loss to the visiting Colorado Avalanche.

The Avs’ Logan O’Connor collected his first career NHL hat trick in the win.

Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon hit for a double in the win.

“A pretty unselfish play by Nathan,” O’Connor said. “He has two, and I think he knows he’s going to get a lot more hat tricks than I will, so nice of him to slide that one over. Ultimately it was a good way to end the road trip with a winner.”

The Avs improved to 30-14-3.

Alexandar Georgiev made 36 saves in the win.

O’Connor potted his first of the afternoon midway through the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Avs.

“His confidence is high, he’s highly competitive, just works in all the right areas, all three zones,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “The defending side of it has been exceptional, always, but now he’s finding a little bit of a groove and going to the net and capitalizing probably on more of his opportunities. He’s earning more, but then capitalizing on a higher percentage of the ones than he has in the past and that’s a confidence thing, that’s trust in your ability.

“He’s been playing third line or better for us all year pretty much, so there’s some added ice time in there. But he’s earned it. He’s earned everything he’s gotten this year.”

Mikko Rantanen pushed the advantage to 2-0 at 18:36 of the first.

MacKinnon picked up his first of the double with 43 seconds gone in the middle frame for a 3-0 lead.

Joel Farabee trimmed the deficit to 3-1 for the Flyers at at 1:49 of the second.

O’Connor collected his double at 8:14 of the second to give the Avs a 4-1 lead.

Travis Konecny tried to rally the Flyers with a goal at 12:23 to cut the Colorado lead to 4*2.

MacKinnon potted his double at at 17:05, for a 5-2 lead headed to the third period.

“Hockey is a funny sport,” MacKinnon said. “To get [four] in a game like tonight is … everything kind of went my way and I’ll take it.”

The Flyers dropped to 25-15-6.

The Flyers’ Tyson Foerster scored at 5:26 of the third period to get the Flyers within two at 5-3.

Cam Atkinson closed the gap to 5-4 with a marker at 8:11 of the third.

Rantanen potted his second of the game at 12:23 off the power play for a 6-4 lead to Colorado.

“I thought we did a pretty good job overall,” Atkinson said. “We played with a lot of confidence and found a way to crawl back into it a little bit. We’ll take some things we did really well and move on.”

O’Connor collected the hats with 21 seconds left on an empty-net strike.

Carter Hart got the start for the Flyer but was given the hook in the second intermission.He made 10 saves, yielding five goals.

Samuel Ersson played a mop up role in the third period, making eight saves.

“Too many turnovers, especially with their dangerous guys,” Philadelphia’s Morgan Frost said. “At the same time, I felt like we carried most of the play. Had a fair amount of chances and good [offensive] zone time, couple good looks on the power play. That’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

Logan O’Connor #25 of the Colorado Avalanche score on the empty net for his third goal of the afternoon.

Goalie Samuel Ersson #33 of the Philadelphia Flyers in the net for the third period

Goalie Carter Hart #79 of the Philadelphia Flyers, Ross Colton #20 of the Colorado Avalanche and Nick Seeler #24 of the Philadelphia Flyers

Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche players scramble for the loose puck.

Sean Walker #26 of the Philadelphia Flyers and Jason Polin #41 of the Colorado Avalanche battle for position in front go Flyers goalie Cater Hart #79.