Panthers win sixth straight with 4-1 decision over Flyers

In Sunrise Sunday, the Florida Panthers continued their clawing up the Eastern Conference ladder with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

The win was the sixth straight for the Panthers as they improved to 32-25-6 and are one point of the second wild card spot in the east.

Roberto Luongo made 39 saves to pick up the win.

“We’re playing our best hockey of the year at the right time,” Luongo said. “We know we still have a lot of work to do. No taking things lightly the rest of the way. We have a lot of work to do and we have to make sure we keep pushing like we have.”

Evgenii Dadonov struck twice for Florida and Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau added single markers in the win.

The Flyers dropped to 34-21-11 on their third straight loss.

The Panthers played a long game and scored off four long passes out of the defensive zone to stretch out the Flyers’ defense.

“We preach that every day, stretch teams out and trying to play north-south real fast,” Panthers head coach Bob Boughner said. “Today, we got a couple bonus. [The Flyers are] an aggressive team, their [defensemen] are really involved in their [offensive-zone] play, they’re roaming around. If you play good defense and you can knife a puck off of them, chances are if we’re stretching them out, we might have a chance there.”

The Flyers had no answers to the speed and offensive scheme.

“They’re definitely a quick team, some of their players,” Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere said. “We knew what they were going to do and we didn’t respect it enough.”

Travis Konecny scored the lone goal for the Flyers long after the game was already decided.

“When we win, we’re happy. I think we’re happy right now,” Barkov said.

[WATCH: All Flyers vs. Panthers highlights]

Petr Mrazek made 22 saves in taking the loss.

“We’ve got tough games coming up, like every night. You’ve got to be ready whether you’re playing a lower-standing team or a top-of-the-standings team. Every team is good,” the Flyers’ Sean Couturier said after the loss. “You’ve got to be ready to battle every night. It’s not different approach or different readiness we need; just got to be ready to battle.”