Philadelphia’s Ivan Provorov scored at 15:03 of the second overtime Thursday night, and the Flyers forced a seventh game in the Eastern Conference semifinals by beating the New York Islanders 5-4 in Toronto.
The winning goal was set up when Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield broke his stick as he tried firing a puck from the Flyers’ blue line.
Flyers center Kevin Hayes picked up the puck and skated behind the New York net before passing back to Provorov, whose shot sailed into a gaggle of players in the crease — including Mayfield — and past goalie Semyon Varlamov to give Philadelphia its third overtime win of the series.
Game 7 is scheduled for Saturday night.
Hayes, James van Riemsdyk, Michael Raffl and Scott Laughton also scored for the Flyers, who are trying to overcome a 3-1 deficit for the second time in franchise history. Philadelphia rallied from a 3-0 hole to beat the Boston Bruins in the 2010 conference semifinals.
Flyers goalie Carter Hart made a career-high 49 saves.
Derick Brassard, Matt Martin, Anders Lee and Mathew Barzal scored for the Islanders, who are trying to reach the conference finals for the first time since 1993. Varlamov recorded 26 saves.
The Flyers capitalized on a pair of Islanders turnovers to score twice in a 96-second span just beyond the midway point of the first period.
Robert Hagg picked up a loose puck during an Islanders shift change to begin the sequence that ended with Hayes firing a shot under Varlamov’s stick arm at the 10:16 mark.
Josh Bailey’s turnover deep in the Flyers zone led to van Riemsdyk’s goal on a semi-breakaway at 11:52.
The Islanders cut the gap in half late in the first before tying the game and taking the lead in a span of 1:42 early in the second. Brassard redirected Devon Toews’ shot with 3:27 left in the first before Martin scored 1:24 into the second and Lee scored the go-ahead goal by putting back the rebound of a Barzal shot.
The Flyers tied the score 3-3 with 6:39 left in the second when Raffl, who had just won his positioning battle in front of the net with Ryan Pulock, put back the rebound of Nicolas Aube-Kubel’s slap shot.
Barzal gave the Islanders the lead again by scoring with 29.7 seconds left in the second after a Flyers giveaway.
Following a turnover by Toews in the Philadelphia zone, Laughton went from his backhand to his forehand to beat Varlamov at the 9:53 mark of the third period.
-Field Level Media
