The Philadelphia Flyers sit second in the Metropolitan Division after beating the Canucks on Thursday. But coach John Tortorella wants his team to be even harder to play against.

If you thought the Philadelphia Flyers were grinding down their opponents during their first 33 games of the season, you ain't seen nothing yet.

"If we're going to survive, you have to check at this time of year – you just change your mindset, here, about the small little battles in the game," said Philadelphia coach John Tortorella after his team came out of the holiday break with a disciplined 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday. 

"Quite honestly, before the break, I didn't think we were playing hard enough, but I left them alone because we were finding ways to win," he added. "Now we're going to coach them. I think we need to be a harder team to play against and hopefully we can build on the checking tonight and bring it into tomorrow night's game."

It's hard to argue with Tortorella's point. The Flyers' last game before Christmas was a wild 7-6 shootout loss in Detroit on Dec. 22, where Philadelphia came back from a 5-1 deficit to take a late lead before settling for a point. 

Thursday's outing looked a lot more like textbook Torts, whose 723rd career NHL win as a coach broke a tie with Alain Vigneault for 10th place all-time.

"We just kind of played patient, waiting for opportunities," said Joel Farabee, who scored his 12th of the year on a breakaway to wrap up a three-goal Flyers outburst over 2:06, late in the second period. "You get a couple of quick ones to build that momentum, and you just go from there."

The Flyers came into the game with the worst power play in the league but got the ball rolling with the man advantage when Egor Zamula floated a shot from the blueline past Casey DeSmith.

" 'Z' has offensive skill. He has good vision," said Tortorella of the undrafted 23-year-old, who's now getting a turn as power-play quarterback after none of his teammates managed to seize the role. 

"We like what he did the last game," Tortorella added about the new formation. "He did basically the same thing on this power play — slid laterally, I think. Just made a quick little move to get away from getting that shot block. We had a good screen, and we scored a big goal. So we'll keep him there, and we'll see where it goes."

Thursday's goal was just the second for Zamula in 51 career NHL games to date. The first also came against Vancouver and stood up as the game-winner in Philadelphia's 2-0 home win over the Canucks back on Oct. 17.

With that success, and after playing his junior hockey in the WHL with the Regina Pats and Calgary Hitmen, does Zamula wish he could play against the Canucks more often?

"Probably," he conceded with a smile.

Thursday's game was a showdown between two of the NHL's biggest surprise teams in 2023-24. Last season, the Canucks finished out the year in 22nd place in the league standings, while the Flyers were 26th. Neither squad has dressed for a playoff game since the 2020 bubble. 

This year, both teams sit in the league's top 10, have identical 7-1-2 records over their last 10 games and have been outstanding when it comes to defending leads. Vancouver is 20-0-0 when ahead after two periods. Philadelphia is 13-1-0.

With points in nine straight games off a 7-0-2 record, the Canucks served up a glimmer of hope that they could keep that streak alive when Teddy Blueger narrowed the lead to 3-1 with his fifth of the year, just 25 seconds into the third period. 

Two minutes later, an ice-cold Carter Hart stepped between the pipes when starter Samuel Ersson was forced to leave the game due to dehydration and cramping. 

Protecting the house, the Flyers blocked three shots in the next two minutes. Then, Cam Atkinson put his team shorthanded by taking two roughing minor penalties when he challenged Vancouver defenseman Noah Juulsen after a big hit on Farabee. But just 10 seconds into the penalty kill, it was Philadelphia that scored when Garnet Hathaway took a feed from Ryan Poehling, then picked up his own rebound to score shorthanded.

"The most important part of the game was when they score, the beginning of the period," Tortorella said. "We just do some dumb stuff on the first shift. They score. (We) take a penalty. And obviously, the shorthanded goal was a great play by 'Pails.' That settled us down, and we played a good third period."

While Tortorella plays up the Flyers' working-class identity, the roster actually features plenty of talent. Under the radar, both Atkinson and Sean Couturier have quietly returned to form after lengthy absences.

A neck injury sidelined Atkinson, 34, for more than a year, including all of last season. Couturier, now 31, dealt with back issues that kept him out of action for 21 months, from December 2022 until October 2023. 

Watching the 2020 Selke winner go 20-for-27 in the faceoff circle on Thursday and seeing the lionhearted 5-foot-8 Atkinson chase down 6-foot-2 Juulsen to avenge a hit on a teammate, it was like they'd never been gone. 

Farabee is another bounce-back success story — a talented first-round pick whose development stalled after he underwent disk replacement surgery during the summer of 2022, the same procedure the Buffalo Sabres refused to approve for Jack Eichel, leading to his trade to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Despite his challenges, Farabee still hit a career-high 39 points last season while dressing for every game. This year, his ice time has dropped a bit to 15 minutes a game. But Farabee is tied for second on his team with 24 points in 34 games — a pace that's close to 60 points. He's still just 23, and his numbers could jump further if the Flyers can actually get their power play going.

For now, they look like a team buying what John Tortorella is selling — that has solid depth at all positions and sits second in the Metropolitan Division on Friday by virtue of two games in hand over the Carolina Hurricanes. Comfortable with being uncomfortable, Philadelphia has also put together one of the best road records in the league, at 11-4-3 away from the Wells Fargo Center.

A season sweep of high-flying Vancouver is a nice feather in their cap, but there's no time to rest on their laurels. The Flyers' Western road trip continues in Seattle on Friday in Tortorella's 1,500th career regular-season game as a coach before moving to Alberta to close out 2023 against the Calgary Flames on Sunday, then welcome 2024 against the surging Edmonton Oilers on Jan. 2.