Five up then five down going into the All-Star break, and now four straight wins coming back from it. 

These Flyers are a rollercoaster, but right now in the best way. 

They completed a comeback win over the visiting Arizona Coyotes, 5-3, on Monday night at the Wells Fargo Center to keep their momentum going approaching Stadium Series this Saturday and to stay well within the Eastern Conference playoff picture at 29-19-6 (64 points).

We're midway through February, and while it hasn't been perfect, the Flyers are still here.

Here are five thoughts from a thrill of a Monday night, with a couple of them tying back to Saturday's win over the Seattle Kraken as well...

Operating from behind

The Flyers came storming out of the gate in the first period but lost steam. The second period was more controlled, but still left them down 3-2 entering the final frame and needing to catch up. 

Defensive breakdowns, busy whistles – the refs called 10 penalties through the first two periods – and a struggle to sustain steady pressure or create open lanes after crossing the offensive blue line all had the Flyers operating from behind.

Also, the power play is still highly ineffective. The Flyers were 0-for-8 on the man advantage Monday night, but in fairness, the Coyotes were pretty bad too, going 0-for-4. 

Philly was never out of it though. 

Morgan Frost's penalty shot conversion put them on the board, Travis Konecny's odd-man rush with Scott Laughton at 4-on-4 kept the pace, and in the third, just cutting through the slot and looking for anything, Jamie Drysdale threw the puck on goal and off the skate of Owen Tippett to tie it at 3 with plenty of time still to work with. 

Setting the stage for...

Laughton on the loose

A pass from Travis Sanheim threaded straight through traffic and onto the stick of Laughton on the opposite end of the goal line, who then wrapped around the net with the puck and tucked it away for the 4-3 lead with just under 10 minutes left. 

And man, did he need that. 

This season has been a struggle for Laughton, who has seen his role on the team reduce from inconsistent play, the bottom six pushing onward with younger forwards like Ryan Poehling, and now trade rumors popping up on the radar. 

But he's found a spark over these past two games, with goals in each of them and three points in total, all contributing to wins – plus a blocked shot early on against the Coyotes that shook him up, but that he continued to hobble through on the penalty kill until the puck could get cleared out in a show of the exact kind of toughness that Philadelphia loves. 

"Get some ice on it and you find a way at this time of year to get through it," Laughton said from the locker room afterward. "It's something that needs to happen at this time of year. [Joel Farabee] has a big block at the end of the game, guys are sacrificing their body. That's just part of the job."

It's been a rough go for Laughton, but he's the lone Flyer with a letter on his chest for a reason. 

"The intangibles Laughts brings to us, it's so important as far as the locker room is concerned," head coach John Tortorella said postgame. "And he gets rewarded, right? He keeps on playing. He's a guy that's been – has some minutes, doesn't have minutes. He just keeps on staying about him and scores a really big goal, kills a couple of big penalties for us, so yeah, he's an important guy that way." 

Frost a force

Frost was noticeably aggressive from the jump Monday night, sticking tight to Arizona puck carriers while following through on a few checking opportunities along the boards. 

That aggression was rewarded early into the second period when Frost shot through the middle of the ice with the puck and shielded off the Arizona defenders bearing down on him to the point where Michael Kesselring had to hook him on the breakaway crashing toward the net to prevent the scoring chance. 

The consequence, however, was a penalty shot awarded to Frost upon the whistle, and he made good on it, out-waiting Coyotes goaltender Karel Vejmelka on the move to make it a 1-1 game and to hand the Flyers momentum. 

It hasn't yielded much in the way of points, but he does have four now (two goals, two assists) in the past three games, and if the Flyers are going to see this playoff push through, they're going to need whatever he can generate through the middle. 

"It's probably one of the best games I've seen him play in a while," Tortorella said of Frost's night postgame. "I thought he tried to put the team on his back, and you could see that he felt it. The thing that is encouraging to me with Frosty is he's willing to play in the middle of the ice now. Last year, I just thought he needed to be more in the areas, where he just played too much on the outside. He's carrying the puck into the middle of the ice and making plays off of that. 

"It's one of the better games I've seen him play since I've coached here."

Coots the catalyst

The Flyers are also going to need the absolute best out of Sean Couturier the rest of the way, who simply by being healthy at the top of the lineup alone has been monumental in how they've been able to turn things around so quickly. 

But that doesn't mean he's immune from criticism. Saturday night against Seattle, the Kraken's tying goal in the third was on a play that was on him, and he got an earful from Tortorella coming back to the bench. But even though he's been away for two years, he's a pro, "a crusty old pro" as Tortorella put it. So when Couturier got back onto the ice, he won a crucial offensive zone faceoff back to Travis Sanheim at the point, then tipped home the shot from in the front for the game-winner with a very directed fist pump after. 

"Oh that was 'F you!' to me, yeah," Tortorella said postgame Saturday night. "I'm sure it was. So be it. So be it. That's part of it. That's what I like about him though. He's a crusty old pro. He's a huge part of this.

"I have a tremendous amount of respect for how he's handled this year after taking two years off, but there's no free passes. We need him terribly in games to be consistent."

And that kind of energy too, wherever it's directed so long as the Flyers are putting pucks in the net. 

Now you know

At this point in the season, there's no more wondering, not after these last two wins against Seattle and then Arizona and 54 games in. The Flyers know exactly who they are now, and we do, too. 

They're good, way better than probably anyone thought they would be. They'll jump on you in transition and thrive off the rush. Their checking can be spotty, and their power play is bottom-of-the-league awful, but they do skate hard, take chances, and their penalty kill can and will catch any opponent napping.

Sam Ersson has given them steady goaltending, and they're hoping Cal Petersen will too behind him the rest of the way. And while they don't have a true, game-breaking superstar – in the way of a Nathan MacKinnon or a Nikita Kucherov, Connor McDavid or, yes, even a Sidney Crosby – they are talented. Travis Konecny has lept up into an All-Star, Joel Farabee has made major strides as a leader and a two-way force, Owen Tippett is continually unlocking more as a goal-scoring power forward, and the list goes on.

They're far from perfect, and far from a Cup contender. But from where things stand right now, the Flyers know what they have, how they have to play, and how successful they can be with it – which might be enough to take them late into April at least. 

It's just a matter now of whether they can maintain it all for this final stretch of games. 

"It's the only question that I'll have the rest of the year is can we do it again?" Tortorella said after the team's morning skate in Voorhees on Monday. "Are we gonna be perfect? No. But we know how we have to play. I think that teaching is done as far as the identity of our team and how we have to play. Can we continue to do it? Can we have our readiness, mentally, to do it again?... 

"There's not gonna be any formula here. It's just readiness and can we do it consistently? We'll have some bumps. We're gonna have some bumps. How do we get out of it and get back to consistently playing the right way? That's what the story is for the 20-plus games left of the season." 

Monday night got rocky, but they pulled through and found a way. Thursday night against a high-powered but flawed Toronto team will more than likely be a battle too, and then there's Saturday's Stadium Series game against a struggling but not dismissible Devils squad. 

The Flyers have come far, but they're not in the clear yet, and each passing game only pushes further into uncharted territory for a relatively inexperienced group.

Nevertheless, they're trucking forward. 

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