Frost scores shootout winner for Flyers in season opener against Canucks

“I think the biggest thing with the power play is you’re just trying to create momentum, whether you score or not,” Farabee said. “Obviously nice to get the one goal early … for the first game of the year, I think it looked pretty good.”

Blueger put Vancouver ahead 2-1 at 11:25 of the second period, passing off the right boards back to defenseman Derek Forbort at the left point, then going to the net to redirect a backdoor return pass from Forbort past a stranded Ersson.

“Something we’ve been working on in practice, going high-low and beating the guy to the corner,” Forbort said. “So just kind of had a feeling he’d be there.”

York tied it 2-2 at 2:48 of the third period with a quick wrist shot that went over the glove of Lankinen and in off the post from the left face-off dot after a cross-ice pass up from Ryan Poehling below the goal line.

Tocchet praised his remaining five defensemen for how they handled extra minutes and unsettled pairings, but the Flyers tried to make it hard on them.

“We just wanted to grind them out,” Farabee said. “Obviously, they went down to 5 D pretty early and we kind of knew that, so we really just wanted to grind them out down low, tire them out and obviously, [York] comes up with a big goal there, to tie it up and [Ersson] just locked it down from there.”

NOTES: Two Flyers forwards made their NHL debut. Matvei Michkov, a 19-year-old picked No. 7 in the 2023 NHL Draft, had five shots, one blocked shot and one penalty in 18:32 of ice time. Jett Luchanko, an 18-year-old selected No. 13 in the 2024 NHL Draft, played 14:36, finishing minus-1 after losing Blueger on his goal and with one rebound shot that forced Lankinen to make a sprawling save. … Vancouver defenseman Quinn Hughes played a game high 31:29, more than five and a half minutes more than any other player in the game, for either team. … Lankinen was a late addition to the Canucks, signing a one-year, $875,000 contract as a free agent on Sept. 21.