Tyson Foerster gave a little shrug and a laugh in the celebration behind the net.
He probably didn't have his second goal in a matter of 17 seconds drawn up the way it happened, if at all, but hey, you take it.
The first tally, now that was a beauty. Noah Cates sauced a backhand pass across the ice that landed straight on Foerster's stick blade as the winger was unloading the shot, and the spiraling puck beat New Jersey goaltender Jake Allen to the shortside post.
On the second, right after the faceoff, Cates picked a loose puck off the wall in the neutral zone, then slipped another pass to Foerster on the center's right on the rush in. Foerster threw a shot on. The puck ricocheted under Allen's blocker and in, and hey, you take it.
Oh, and right before both of those, Matvei Michkov scored on a breakaway after Sean Couturier stole the puck by the defensive zone blue line and fed him a pass that sent him storming up the ice.
The Flyers, a team that had been waiting for offense to pile up, had just scored three goals in 26 seconds – the fastest outburst in franchise history. They went on to beat the visiting Devils, 6-3, Saturday night at the Xfinity Mobile Arena, and on the initial spark from Noah Cates' tying goal from a swarm of chaos in the front of the New Jersey net earlier on, they took a three-goal lead into the game's first intermission and never relented.
THE FLYERS SCORE THREE IN 26 SECONDS! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/eJQytbwnn0
— NHL (@NHL) November 23, 2025
Bobby Brink, with speed, cut through the Devils and scored his sixth of the year to make it 5-1 in the second. Then in the third, Trevor Zegras broke away and fired home the dagger for his seventh to snuff out any late building momentum from the Devils.
"Some good plays," Cates said postgame."Building was loud, building was going, and it was a good start for us, for the first time in a while, I feel like."
Did the Flyers have to dig out of another hole? Yes, from Timo Meier's power-play tally that resulted from one bounce too many in front of Dan Vladar to open up. But it wasn't a grind this time. It wasn't taken down to the wire, and it wasn't a defensive slog that the Flyers had to out-endure their opponents on, either just waiting for a mistake or a chance to get to their new specialty in the shootout.
They skated downhill, and once they got going, they piled on.
On a night made in tribute to Bernie Parent, the legendary Broad Street Bullies era goaltender who passed away in September, the Flyers of today rose to the occasion with the kind of performance that they needed to produce, that fans needed to see them produce, and all against a Metro division rival that they're likely going to have to fight later down the line if they're going to take this phase of their rebuild to the next level.
"It's a big thing," head coach Rick Tocchet said. "That team [the Devils] can come back. They tried. They had some chances there. They score a goal and who knows, right? But that's why you have to bear down. That's why you gotta stay structured, stay in your system, but it was nice to have that killer instinct."
It brought the Flyers to consecutive wins and the full four points – against the Blues on Thursday and then the Devils on Saturday – leaving the short two-game homestand in South Philly.
They're 11-6-3 headed to Tampa for a four-game road trip over the Thanksgiving holiday.
It has them as a fringe Wild Card team in a still very early picture of the Eastern Conference standings, but hey, you take it.
Some more standouts from Saturday night at the rink…
It takes two
Head coach Rick Tocchet took a risk shuffling up the Foerster-Cates-Brink line, by swapping Brink out for Travis Konecny and moving Brink up the right wing of Couturier and Michkov, but so far, every skater involved has made that gamble a winner.
Foerster is on his third goal in the past two games, Cates turned in a three-point night with his goal and the primary assist on both of Foerster's lamp-lighters, and Konecny was credited for an assist on a neutral zone pass that started the sequence to Foerster's first goal on the night – which piled on to the two assists that Konecny collected Thursday night agaist St. Louis.
On the other line, meanwhile, Michkov and Brink both scored, and Couturier had the lone assists on the plays that sprung both of them toward the net.
As far as line combinations go, Tocchet and the Flyers might've tapped into something.
Back in training camp, Tocchet talked about his approach to line combos and said he goes about them as pairs, not as trios. The way he saw it, as long as you have two players on a line that complement one another well, the third skater can be relatively interchangeable.
So far, here's what those core pairings appear to be…
• Sean Couturier – Matvei Michkov
• Noah Cates – Tyson Foerster
• Christian Dvorak – Trevor Zegras
It's probably not a coincidence that those are all the names who are either producing the most offense right now, or are the key names the Flyers want to be looking to for it.
Emil evolves
Emil Andrae took another step toward staying a Flyer for good on Saturday night.
Staying on the newly formed defensive pairing with Jamie Drysdale, Andrae skated 18:15 and could be seen regularly battling in the corners and breaking the puck out up the ice.
During one particular sequence in the first period, Andrae dug after the puck in the defensive zone corner, won control of it, made the breakout pass into center ice, then chased down after the puck again into the offensive corner.
The 23-year-old skated the full 200 feet to maintain possession, and fought through contact from some bigger New Jersey checkers throughout.
Andrae is relatively undersized at 5'9", and his appeal lies in his ability to carry and move the puck more than anything. And he's been doing that, for sure, during his recent surge, and all with increasing confidence.
But maybe a byproduct of that: He's playing surprisingly physical, too.
"I think Emil, he's shown an ability to go in the corner and he's not afraid to squash a player, hit a guy," Tocchet said at the morning skate Saturday. "He's a small guy, but he's built pretty good."
"I mean, I'm strong on the walls, strong on the puck, so I think it comes down to a lot of competitiveness, too," Andrae told the local media after the skate. "I like to use that to my advantage. Maybe it's a little surprising for the guys that I play against."
But it's working. Hey, you take it.
One more for No. 1
On Friday night, the Flyers held a Celebration of Life ceremony for Parent at the arena so that fans, his former teammates, the generations of Flyers that proceeded him, and his friends and family all had their time to deliver speeches in tribute, share memories and stories, and give all their thanks to a larger-than-life personality who changed the Flyers, Philadelphia, and the entire NHL forever.
On Saturday night, the organization kept it rolling.
Before the game, the Ed Snider Youth Hockey and Education Foundation announced a new goalie development program to honor Parent's legacy.
On the ice during the national anthem, young goalies from around the area in full pads wearing Snider Hockey No. 1 jerseys accompanied each Flyer on the ice, and then the spotlight fell on the Philadelphia net, where Parent's old mask rested on top, as applause, then cheers, then "BERNIE!" chants poured in from the crowd.
A “Bernie” chant as Flyers honor the late Bernie Parent with a white mask on the net. pic.twitter.com/kZTQCfrQPi
— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) November 23, 2025
Vladar let in a few (he stopped 32 of 35 shots in total), but kept the Flyers ahead and made some sprawling saves down the stretch that would've gotten a hearty laugh out of Parent, and the skaters in front of the crease made sure they never fell behind again.
Really, Saturday night was a game they just couldn't lose.
SIGN UP HERE to receive the PhillyVoice Sports newsletter
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Follow Nick on Bluesky: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports