LAS VEGAS (AP) One week after the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl Jamie Benn Jersey , chants of ”Fly, Eagles, Fly” could be heard roughly 2,500 miles away from the City of Brotherly Love.A loud and exuberant contingent of Philadelphia fans donning orange among the 18,220 in attendance watched Sean Couturier score a goal and two assists to help the Flyers beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-1 on Sunday.And just like backup quarterback Nick Foles led the Eagles to their first Super Bowl championship, backup goalie Michal Neuvirth stepped up for injured starter Brian Elliott by shutting the door on back-to-back nights for the Flyers.One night after coming off the bench to stop five shootout attempts and help Philadelphia to a 4-3 win in Arizona, Neuvirth stopped 14 shots to improve to 7-7-2 on the year by defeating the Western Conference’s top team.”It was huge coming off the bench yesterday and shutting the door, it gave me a lot of confidence coming into this game,” said Neuvirth, who was forced into Saturday’s game when Elliott was injured while making a shootout save. ”It was a great game right from the start, great atmosphere, great crowd, and it’s so much to fun to play in front of a crowd like that.”On the way to the rink from the hotel I saw so many fans wearing our jerseys. Back-to-back wins, with our tough schedule, it’s huge for us.”The Flyers became just the fourth team to beat Vegas in regulation at T Mobile Arena.Andrew Macdonald, Claude Giroux and Radko Gudas also scored for Philadelphia, which improved to 20-8-2 since Dec. 4 – when it ended a 10-game winless streak with a 5-2 victory at Calgary.”Coming off a back-to-back it’s kind of tough to get the legs going, but we grinded it out,” Couturier said. ”They’ve got a good team. I think they probably outplayed us most of the night. Neuvie kept us in the game and we got a few lucky bounces to get us going a little bit. Every game matters, every point is important. We found a way to win and that’s all that matters.”The Flyers have won four straight to move into third place in the Metropolitan Division, just one point behind second-place Pittsburgh.”For a night like tonight, to win on a back-to-back, you have to have good goaltending, and you have to have a whole bunch of guys that are willing to lay it on the line and scratch and claw and find a way,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. ”I think that sums up a little bit about our hockey team.”Brayden McNabb scored the lone goal for Vegas, which is 19-4-2 at home this season. Marc-Andre Fleury, now 27-18-2 lifetime versus Philadelphia, finished with 38 saves.The Golden Knights, who have 12 power-play goals in their last 10 games, had registered a goal with a man advantage in each of their previous nine games, which tied for the longest power-play goal streak this season. Vegas was 0-for-1 with their only power-play opportunity against the Flyers.”We got a ton of shots but nothing that was really dangerous – that was the difference in the game,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. ”I thought we played well in the first, thought the second was a bad one for us. They did a good job protecting the lead in the third. We weren’t hungry enough tonight. We just weren’t competitive enough to score those goals tonight.”McNabb opened the scoring with his fourth goal of the season at 11:22 of the first period, when he took a pass from Reilly Smith and skated in to beat Neuvirth with a blistering wrist shot on the goalie’s glove side to give Vegas a 1-0 lead.After some nifty passing in the attacking zone http://www.officialstarsproonline.com/authentic-adidas-jason-spezza-jersey , Couturier one-timed a pass from Travis Konecny through the legs of Fleury, tying the game at 1-all with a little more than 2 minutes left in the first. It was Couturier’s team-leading 28th goal of the season.The Flyers scored twice late in the second period to take a 3-1 lead. First it was Couturier firing a shot that Macdonald deflected past Fleury with 2:52 remaining. Then, with 5.8 seconds left, Fleury’s poke check turned into a pass for Giroux, who scored his 199th career goal.Gudas’ empty-netter with 2:26 to go provided the final margin.NOTES: Philadelphia’s Jakub Voracek snapped an eight-game scoring streak. … Couturier needs just three goals to reach 100 in his career. … Vegas’ Deryk Engelland is one point away from tying his career high at 17. … William Karlsson, who assisted on McNabb’s goal, is two points shy of 100 for his career.UP NEXTPhiladelphia: Hosts New Jersey on Tuesday.Vegas: Hosts Chicago on Tuesday. BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon shrugged off his hot start with the Colorado Avalanche this season by suggesting he can be better.“It’s nice for sure. I think I can play better than I am,” MacKinnon said after scoring twice in a 6-1 rout of the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night. “I’m just putting it in right now but I think, overall, it hasn’t been the easiest year so far.”Coach Josh Bednar agrees with his player, who has five goals and extended his season-opening scoring streak to four games.“I feel like he’s just kind of starting to hit his stride,” Bednar said, before turning his attention to the Avalanche’s top line rounded out by Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog.“If they continue to work the way they’re working, and do the right things and pay attention to the process, it’s going to come for them,” he added.Tyson Jost and Colin Wilson scored power-play goals 2:25 apart in a first period in which the Avalanche built a 3-0 lead on Carl Soderberg’s goal with 3:30 left.MacKinnon scored his first of the game 28 seconds after Buffalo’s Nathan Beaulieu cut Colorado’s lead to 3-1 late in the second period.MacKinnon and Alexander Kerfoot then scored breakaway goals in the final five minutes as Colorado improved to 3-1 and bounced back from a 5-2 loss at Columbus.Semyon Varlamov stopped 30 shots to improve to 3-0. And Mackinnon matched the Colorado franchise record for a goal streak to open a season, set by John Mitchell three years ago.Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin , the first overall draft pick this summer, got his first career point with an assist on Beaulieu’s goal.Otherwise, very little went right for Buffalo (2-2), which squandered a chance to match last season’s team-best three-game winning streak.Whatever momentum the Sabres attempted to generate were dashed with 22 second left in the first period when Kyle Okposo’s goal was disallowed following a coaching challenge for goalie interference.Officials determined Okposo interfered with Varlamov when he crashed into the crease to convert Jack Eichel’s pass. After redirecting the pass, Okposo backed into the goalie, forcing Varlamov to lift his right pad and allowing the puck to sneak in beneath it.“I knew it was going to be probably a 50-50 one,” Okposo said. “I don’t think me being there really affected it. But they did. And that’s how it goes.”Okposo was more frustrated over how Buffalo started the game.“I think it would’ve been nice to get out of there 3-1, but we deserved to be down 3-0,” he said. “We didn’t play well in the first period. Like, it was bad.”Buffalo’s bad breaks were compounded after Beaulieu scored.MacKinnon scored to regain Colorado’s three-goal edge after a Sabres clearing attempt got caught up referee Francis Charron’s skate. The puck dribbled to Rantanen, who fed a pass through the crease to a wide-open MacKinnon.“Last game we started out a little bit sloppy so it was something we emphasized before the game,” Wilson said. “We answered the bell there and stayed in our mindset the whole game.”NOTES: Colorado converted 2 of 4 power-play opportunities, while Buffalo went 0 for 7. … Avalanche C Vladislav Kamenev made his season debut. Acquired from Nashville in a three-team trade in November, he missed 50 games after breaking his arm in his Avalanche debut. … Sabres LW Johan Larsson made his season debut since sustaining a lower body injury during the preseason. D Zach Bogosian (lower body) was placed on injured reserve. … Sabres G Carter Hutton had 24 saves.UP NEXTAvalanche: Return home to play Calgary Flames on Saturday, before heading east for four-game road trip.Sabres: Open five-game road trip at Arizona on Saturday.
