By Mary Cunningham
Brayden Schenn and Jakob Chychrun were fighting.
Which is not an unusual occurrence in the National Hockey League.
And then Martin Hanzal slipped the puck into the net to help the Arizona Coyotes beat the Flyers 5-4 last night to snap a five-game road losing streak.
Goaltender Steve Mason allowed Hanzal and Brad Richardson to snap a tie with two straight goals in the third. Jamie McGinn, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Ryan White also scored for Arizona, which has its only two wins this season against the Flyers.
The Coyotes salvaged one victory on a season-long, six-game road trip.
“Don’t kid yourself. There’s still a lot of work to do,” Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said.
Louis Domingue stopped 28 shots and won his first game of the season. He had been 0-4 with a 5.03 goals against average and had stopped only 85 percent of his shots.
Schenn, Nick Cousins, Andrew MacDonald and Wayne Simmonds scored for the Flyers.
Arizona’s two straight goals in the third came in a bit of a bizarre manner.
Schenn leveled defenseman Michael Stone and Chychrun quickly came to his defense. Chychrun and Schenn brawled against the boards as the crowd erupted — and no one paid attention to the puck.
“I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on,” Mason said. “I was focused on the play coming at me. Whether there was a whistle blown or not, we still gave up a goal.”
Hanzal made it 3-2 and led to a few confusing moments as officials checked to make sure the goal was scored before the fight. Wildly cheering fans fell silent in a second when the goal was announced.
“I look at the monitor at my feet and you could see the one referee signal it’s a good goal,” Tippett said. “But then I don’t know what the other one was doing up by the fight.”
Chychrun was tossed for instigating the fight.
Richardson made it 4-2 on a goal that was reviewed because the Flyers thought he ran down Mason. Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov took Richardson down and they went into the net together so the goal counted.
MacDonald, having a miserable season, made it 4-3 but the Flyers were out of rallies.
White scored an insurance goal late in third to send fans toward the exits. Simmonds scored with 14.3 seconds left.
The Flyers again had to rally from an early deficit, a troubling theme for a team with playoff aspirations. The Coyotes led 2-0 in the first, the latest slow start for the Flyers. They have been outscored 8-1 in the first period this season and allowed the first goal for the seventh straight game.
Coach Dave Hakstol hoped a line change would boost the Flyers offense. He moved 19-year-old rookie center Travis Konecny to the top line with Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek after that late-game pairing helped the Flyers come back from a 3-1 deficit to beat Buffalo.
“We needed a spark, that’s why we’re trying something a little bit different,” Hakstol said.
The Flyers needed help early.
Moments after they honored former great Eric Lindros — in his No. 88 sweater — another 88 got them with a goal. McGinn scored his first goal of the season to beat Mason. Ekman-Larsson followed with a slapper from the point for his fifth goal of the season.
The Coyotes, who last won on opening night against the Flyers on Oct. 15, failed to hold the lead.
Cousins pounded home a rebound for his first goal of the season and Schenn followed with a power-play score to help the Flyers at least tie the game when down two goals for the fifth time this season.
