Making the victory even more impressive was the fact that the Flyers did it with five injured regulars out of the lineup: forwards Travis Konecny (lower body), Owen Tippett (upper body) and Tyson Foerster (undisclosed), and defensemen Cam York (upper body) and Rasmus Ristolainen (upper body).
In their place were four rookies: defenseman Hunter McDonald, who was recalled from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League on Sunday, and forwards Alex Bump, Cole Knuble and Jacob Gaucher, who were called up from the AHL on Monday.
“I think it’s really important that anyone can be substituted in the lineup and come and play how we need them to,” goaltender Joseph Woll said. “You’ve got guys playing bigger roles, and the guys coming into the lineup, for me, it seems like we didn’t take a step down at all from our systems and honestly elevated our play. So, it was pretty cool to see from my vantage point.”
Noel Acciari scored his first goal of the season, and Trevor Zegras had three assists for Philadelphia (2-6-3), which began the season 0-6-3 before defeating the Ottawa Senators 3-1 on Saturday. Woll made 24 saves.
Martin Necas and T.J. Hughes scored for Colorado (5-3-1). Mackenzie Blackwood made 21 saves.
“Sluggish and sloppy,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Execution was a big factor for us tonight, and the pace we were playing at. Sloppy, and passes weren’t good, handling passes wasn’t good. It’s hard to go anywhere when you’re beating the puck up, and that’s what I thought we did for the bulk of the game.”
Michkov scored a power-play goal to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 7:41 of the first period. He received the puck in the right corner and passed across to Zegras, whose slap-pass hit Flyers forward Denver Barkey in front before popping back out to Michkov, who shot into an open net from below the right circle.
The goal stood after the Avalanche challenged the play for goaltender interference.
Michkov then made it 2-0 at 12:23 of the second period. He circled the offensive zone before scoring with a shot from above the circles that went through traffic and past Blackwood.
“Those goals are just goal-scorers’ goals,” Tocchet said. “He’s timing it right, because sometimes you overshoot it or you’re too late, but he has a knack to do that. So, he’s skating well.”