Owen Tippett's hat trick carries Flyers to 5-2 win over Sabres

PHILADELPHIA — Owen Tippett took control of the Wells Fargo Center on Friday night, leading his team to a 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres with his first career hat trick.

Things could have gone south for the Flyers when they went on the penalty kill early against the league’s fourth-best power play. Tippett, a new face on the unit, helped it survive the two short-handed minutes. That gave the Flyers momentum, and they started to control the pace of play as Tippett generated multiple opportunities off the rush.

Tippett wasn’t able to turn any of those breakaways into points, but, when the Flyers went on the power play, he capitalized, scoring his sixth power-play goal of the season and his first of the night.

That set the tone for the Flyers’ dominant second period. Joel Farabee scored on a rebound four minutes in. Tippett then scored again off a feed from Kevin Hayes. With the goal, he became the team’s second 20-goal scorer this season, behind Travis Konecny (27). It also was his third multi-goal game of the season.

James van Riemsdyk added another goal in the final minutes to give the Flyers a 4-0 lead going into the third.

However, the Flyers also had three guys in the box going into the third. When Laughton took a penalty, there were four players in the box, and the Sabres’ power play capitalized with a Victor Olofsson goal, scored just over two minutes in.

Any momentum the Sabres could have gotten from that goal was buried under the hats that rained onto the ice after Tippett scored the Flyers’ fifth goal on a breakaway, set up by a flipped pass from Tony DeAngelo.

The Sabres had the final word with a second power-play goal.

A drop in the drought

For the first time since March 1, the Flyers scored a power-play goal. They’d had 12 opportunities across the five games since then, but every unit combination came up with nothing. Their power play fell to 14.9%, the worst success rate in the league.

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