Van Riemsdyk scores 2, Flyers beat Blue Jackets 7-4

Trailing by two goals early in the third period, the Philadelphia Flyers didn’t get discouraged. They simply maintained their focus and came through with their biggest late rally in nearly six years.

Kevin Hayes scored the go-ahead short-handed goal late in host Philadelphia’s five-goal third period, and the Flyers beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 7-4 Saturday night.

“When you have five goals in nine minutes, it’s just an example of sticking to it,” Hayes said. “We’re getting a lot of shots on net each night and that’s been big for us.”

James van Riemsdyk had two goals and an assist, Jake Voracek added a goal and two assists, Shayne Gostisbehere had a goal and an assist, and Michael Raffl and Travis Konecny also scored for Philadelphia. Ivan Provorov and Hayes also each had two assists, and Brian Elliott finished with 22 saves for the Flyers.

The five-goal outburst was the first time that Philadelphia had that many tallies in the third period since Dec. 19, 2013, when they rallied to beat Columbus 5-4.

“I thought we deserved to win this game,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said. “We were the better team. We had a real strong second period, tied it up, saw them score one (at the end of the second) and one (early in the third) to take the lead. But we said that we were going to find a way to win this game.”

Boone Jenner scored twice, and Pierre-Luc Dubois and Josh Anderson also had goals for Columbus. Joonas Korpisalo stopped 39 shots.

Anderson’s goal 2:15 into the third period gave the Blue Jackets a 4-2 lead. The Flyers then scored five times in an 8:54 stretch in the latter half of the period.

“After that goal we got to have a push and stay on it,” Jenner said. “I don’t think we did that tonight.”

Gostisbehere got the rally started...