February 29, 2024
Think Tyson Foerster's feeling confident?
holy moly tyson foerster pic.twitter.com/gQFHcSy1OI
— Brooke Destra (@BrookeNBCS) February 28, 2024
Foerster's highlight-reel goal Tuesday night against the Lightning snapped a 1-1 tie early into the third period and opened up the floodgates to a run of three unanswered from Philadelphia on the way to a much-needed 6-2 win at home.
It was his fourth tally in three games since coming back from an injury caused by a blocked shot, and his seventh dating back to the January 27 loss against Boston – a seven-game stretch.
All season long, the 22-year old winger has impressed the Flyers' brass with a responsible and consistent 200-foot game that often kept his line out of trouble, but wasn't necessarily translating into high offensive numbers for much of it.
But the goals piling up always just seemed to be a matter of time, his teammates believed. His shot especially was just too quick and snappy for him to not find his openings with it eventually.
And in the thick of a playoff race that has grown tighter entering March, the timing couldn't have been better for it now that he is, even if that backhander on Tuesday night wasn't exactly his sharpest.
"It was a really nice goal," center Morgan Frost, who fed him the pass on that scoring sequence while heading back to the bench, said postgame. "Just thought he threw a muffin on the backhand there, but yeah, really nice goal. He's been looking great. All the guys have a lot of trust in him when he's out there."
"I heard playoff hockey here is pretty amazing."
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) February 28, 2024
Tyson Foerster discusses his recent play on the ice and preparing for some potential playoff hockey. 🟠⚫ pic.twitter.com/ljrfpFOft3
And hey, that muffin found its way past one of the league's best netminders of the last several years in Andrei Vasilevskiy, and snowballed into a 4-1 Flyers swing after defensemen Travis Sanheim and Sean Walker threaded through shots to pile on.
Take them however they come, especially this late into the season and in a position few expected the Flyers to actually be in.
"I didn't really have any sense of trying to take it to the net," Foerster said. "I was just trying to get it on net. I don't know if it was the lights or not, but it just squeaked in and I was pretty happy."
It's what confidence can do for you.
"He's playing with more confidence," head coach John Tortorella said of Foerster postgame. "Those guys, when they start scoring some goals, the puck tends to follow them around and they feel more comfortable with it, for sure. But the thing for me is he doesn't forget the other part. He did the work on the walls, [got] pucks out. He's just a smart player and, yeah, I think he's gaining some confidence as far as the offensive part of it."
"Yeah, and that's as to be expected," Sanheim said from the Flyers' locker room. "He's a young guy in this league. It usually takes time and you can just see by the game, he's getting more comfortable and it's starting to pay off for him."
And just when the Flyers needed it to.
Travis Konecny, the team's leading scorer and a force up and down the ice, sat out his third straight game Tuesday night with an upper-body injury the Flyers have him designated as day-to-day with. But in his postgame presser, Tortorella seemed to have hinted that the situation might be a bit more severe than it sounds at face value.
"We found a way to score some goals," Tortorella said. But...
"We miss TK. He's a huge part of our energy and we can't go – It's gonna be hard if he doesn't get back in.
"But Tyson's beginning to come, find other people, I thought [Ryan Poehling's] line was really good tonight. Everybody's gotta chip in. I'm not sure what the situation is with TK, when he comes back. Until he does, we gotta do it by committee and everybody's gotta just raise their level."
But so far – albeit in a short span – Foerster has risen to the occasion, and the hope now is that the young forward will continue to do so on through into late April.
"I think I was trying to do everything possible to not get scored against and that was my mindset," Foerster said about his lack of offense in the earlier part of the season. "Now pucks are starting to go in for me, so it feels good."
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