Well, at least the Flyers won on Saturday night

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So there I am on Saturday night out with a friend at some bar I’ve never been to in some suburb I’ve never been to and ordering way too much fried food at about 8 p.m. when I looked up at the random TV without football on and then I remembered…

…Holy moly, the Flyers are playing!

Ok, so I may have lied because I knew the Flyers were playing and I watched as intently as possible with an Eagles playoff game on but you get the point.

But not only did the Flyers play Saturday night, they came from behind and won!

Scott Hartnell, Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds, Jake Voracek and Claude Giroux each scored as the Flyers twice overcame two-goal deficits to earn a 5-3 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday night in the desert. It was the team’s third third-period comeback in the last five games.

The Coyotes jumped out to a 2-0 lead but Steve Mason – who had 24 saves and was superb once again – kept the Flyers in the game with key saves at key times before the Coyotes could really run away with things.

The momentum of the game turned when Jay Rosehill dropped the gloves with Phoenix’s Paul Bissonnette when Phoenix held a 3-1 lead midway through the second period. After that fight, Philadelphia scored four unanswered goals, including Voracek’s game-winner where he picked the pocket of a Phoenix defender and wristed the puck past goalie Mike Smith about halfway through the final stanza.

It was another impressive win for the Flyers on a road trip chock-full of impressive wins.

So far on this Western swing, Philadelphia came from behind to top Edmonton in a shootout, tied the game late and then beat Vancouver in another shootout, stormed past Calgary and then beat Phoenix last night.

Even in Thursday’s hiccup in Denver against the Avalanche, the Flyers played well enough to win but Avs’ goalie Semyon Varlamov had himself a spectacular night in net.

The point is that the Flyers have brought a consistent winning effort and mentality through the first five games of the trip.

Six-game road trips like this one can often tell you a lot about a team. Through the first five games of this trip, we’ve learned that the Flyers can play hang with almost any team as long they bring that consistent effort and mentality to the rink every night.

That’s been an issue at times through out the first half of this season, though. Maybe it’s finally out of their system. We shall see. But with the goaltenders playing as well as they have on this trip – Mason has stopped 109 of 120 shots and Emery stopped 23 of 24 shots – anything can happen.

Sure, they need to work on the whole defensive turnover thing – looking at you, Braydon Coburn – but that’s another story for another day.

The Orange and Black’s trip concludes Tuesday evening in beautiful, exotic Newark, N.J. and an important Metropolitan Division meeting with the Devils.

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