Couturier leads Flyers past Habs in shootout

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Sean Couturier scored the lone shootout goal and the Philadelphia Flyers overcame an early deficit to beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 on Wednesday night.

Owen Tippett and Morgan Frost scored in regulation and Sam Ersson made 17 saves to help Philadelphia cap a four-game homestand with its third victory in 10 games.

Sean Monahan and David Savard scored for Montreal, and Cayden Primeau made 37 saves. The Canadiens have lost five of seven.

Flyers coach John Tortorella lashed out at a beat reporter during his postgame news conference, questioning a report surrounding the trade of top prospect Cutter Gauthier on Monday.

Gauthier told Flyers general manager Danny Briere that he didn’t want to play in Philadelphia or for the Flyers. Unable to sign Gauthier, Philadelphia traded the Boston College star to Anaheim on Monday for defenseman Jamie Drysdale.

On Monday, a reporter with a podcast affiliated with the team said, citing an organizational source, that former Flyers forward Kevin Hayes’ “fingerprints are all over this.” Hayes, a former Boston College player, now plays for St. Louis.

Tortorella took issue with the report.

“Is the guy here that caused Kevin Hayes a problem?” Tortorella asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Are you kidding me? You think Kevin Hayes is going to do something like that? ... ,” Tortorella said. “It just pisses me off that you guys throw that around and affect someone’s life. Kevin Hayes and I had a problem and we couldn’t come to an agreement how to play.

“That’s a good man. That’s a good man. And what you said is going to stay with him. That’s what you guys don’t understand. You’re going to sit there and say you have the right sources. ...”

Tortorella then called it a “silly podcast.”

The Flyers outshot Montreal 7-1 in overtime and had several high-quality scoring chances, but Primeau turned them aside. Primeau made good saves on Frost, Drysdale and Scott Laughton in the extra session.

“I don’t think we’ve been playing fast enough, not direct enough,” Tortorella said. “I liked the speed of our game.”

In the tiebreaker, Couturier made a nifty move to beat Primeau on the near post as Philadelphia’s first shooter. Travis Konecny hit the post on his try, and Bobby Brink was denied by Primeau.

“I think we battled hard for most of the night,” Couturier said. “We were controlling the play pretty well, and we stuck to it. It was a huge win.”

Ersson made saves on attempts by Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Michael Pezzetta.

Philadelphia improved to 4-2 in shootouts, and the Canadiens fell to 4-4.

“I thought we made a good push at the end, but I thought we could play a lot better,” Canadiens forward Josh Anderson said.

The Canadiens took two shots in the first period and scored on both attempts.

Monahan opened the scoring 1:29 into the contest on a deflection in front. Savard put Montreal ahead 2-0 when his shot went off the stick of Frost and past Ersson.

Philadelphia got one back late in the period on Tippett’s 14th of the season when he fired a wrist shot from a sharp angle past Primeau.

Frost evened the contest with a power-play tally 8:30 into the second, with a wrist shot that just got past Primeau’s glove side.

Defenseman Drysdale played in his first game with the Flyers after being acquired from Anaheim on Monday for top prospect Cutter Gauthier, whom general manager Danny Briere said didn’t want to play in Philadelphia or for the Flyers.

Drysdale got a warm welcome from Philadelphia fans during warmups.

“That was pretty awesome,” he said.

The Flyers hosted their annual Pride Night in support and celebration of the local LGBTQ community.

UP NEXT

Canadiens: Host San Jose on Thursday night.

Flyers: At Minnesota on Friday night.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl