Owen Tippett notched his third career hat trick and fourth career four-point night as the Philadelphia Flyers survived a late scare to beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-3 to match their franchise record with eight straight road wins.

Noah Cates and Sean Couturier also scored for the Flyers (35-24-12, 82 points), and Jamie Drysdale and Travis Konecny posted two assists each.

Dan Vladar stopped 30 shots to go to 4-1-1 in his last six starts.

Mason Appleton, Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond scored for Detroit (39-25-8, 86 points), all within a span of 2:31 late in the third period as the Red Wings tried to dig out of a 4-0 hole. Moritz Seider assisted on two of them.

John Gibson made 17 saves on 21 shots for the Red Wings. Cam Talbot relieved Gibson and saved all four shots he faced.

Detroit had a chance to vault into the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot with a win. Instead, the Red Wings stayed tied with the Ottawa Senators, both a point back of the Columbus Blue Jackets, as the Flyers moved within four points with a game in hand.

The Flyers jumped ahead on their first shot of the game at 15:53. Tippett scored on a breakaway as Trevor Zegras found his teammate behind the Red Wings’ defense.

Tippett got his second goal with 7:32 to go in the middle frame. Denver Barkey dropped the puck back to the winger, open in the high slot.

Cates made it 3-0 on a rare power-play goal for Philadelphia with 3:52 remaining in the second. The Flyers entered Saturday with the league’s worst power play (14.5%) and only scored once in their last 27 chances.

Tippett got his third goal and chased Gibson on another power-play goal with 12:41 left in regulation.

The Flyers scored two power-play goals for just the sixth time this season.

It appeared Philadelphia had the game wrapped up, but Appleton ended Vladar’s shutout hopes with 6:17 left in the game. DeBrincat followed with his 37th at 4:50.

Talbot was pulled 14 seconds later, and Raymond cut the Flyers’ advantage to one with 3:46 remaining.

Couturier, though, ended any thought of Detroit positing its second four-goal comeback of the season with his empty-netter, assisted by Tippett, with 2:04 to go.

The 1982-83 Flyers also won eight straight road games.

–Field Level Media

Randy Vasquez fired six shutout innings Saturday night as the San Diego Padres avoided a season-opening, three-game sweep at the visiting Detroit Tigers’ hands with a 3-0 victory.

Vasquez allowed just two hits, both to third baseman Cole Keith, while walking three and striking out eight, one shy of his career high. Kyle Hart followed with two perfect innings and Mason Miller worked the ninth to earn the save. It was the first win for Craig Stammen, San Diego’s first-year manager.

Jack Flaherty absorbed the loss, allowing four hits and three runs (two earned) over 4 1/3 innings. Flaherty walked four and whiffed two.

The Padres got the only runs they needed in the bottom of the third. Flaherty mowed down the first eight guys he faced before allowing three straight two-out hits to Freddy Fermin, Jake Cronenworth and Fernando Tatis Jr., with Tatis’ hit scoring Fermin.

The second run scored when second baseman Gleyber Torres’ fielding error on Tatis’ steal of second enabled Cronenworth to score.

That was enough for Vasquez, who was only threatened twice. Detroit got men to second and third in the first after Torres walked and Keith doubled but Riley Greene’s grounder to Cronenworth at second forced Torres at the plate. Spencer Torkelson looked at a third strike to end the inning.

In the sixth, Keith singled with two outs and Greene drew a walk. But with Hart warming up in the bullpen, Vasquez escaped when Torkelson’s hard shot to third became a forceout on Manny Machado’s terrific play.

San Diego got its final run in the fifth via Flaherty’s loss of control. He issued one-out walks to Cronenworth, Tatis and Machado, forcing manager A.J. Hinch to bring in Brant Hurter out of the bullpen. Jackson Merrill’s fielder’s choice grounder scored Cronenworth.

Ramon Laureano collected three of the Padres’ seven hits, while Cronenworth went 1 for 3 with two runs in his first game as the team’s leadoff hitter since 2023.

–Field Level Media

Joe Pyfer (16-3 MMA) sent former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya (24-6 MMA) back to the drawing board in Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night headliner in Seattle, stopping Adesanya at 4:18 of the second round to cap the night.

Before the TKO finish, both fighters exchanged their best punches in a stand-up battle until a Pyfer takedown signaled the beginning of the end.

“I just have this mentality where I don’t care, I’m going to search and destroy,” Pyfer said following the stoppage, securing the finish in top control.

Adesanya, fighting out of New Zealand, hasn’t won a bout since regaining middleweight gold in April 2023 at UFC 287, and confirmed he has no plans to retire.

“I’m just going to keep going and going and going,” Adesanya said.

A rematch five years in the making commenced at flyweight as former champion Alexa Grasso made short work of Maycee Barber with a TKO stoppage at 2:42 of the opening round. The Mexican used a left hook to down Barber before jumping on top of her immediately as the referee stepped in.

The two first met in Feb. 2021, with Grasso earning a decision. Grasso (17-5-1 MMA) snapped a two-fight losing skid, whereas Barber (15-3 MMA) had not lost since the first meeting with Grasso, having won her previous seven fights.

In his final MMA fight, welterweight Michael Chiesa (20-7 MMA) had a hometown send-off as he submitted Niko Price (16-11 MMA) with a first-round rear-naked choke. Chiesa needed just 63 seconds to put a bow on his UFC career, one that spanned a decade-plus and included winning the 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter in June 2012.

Chiesa ended his UFC career at 15-7, while Price, who has been in the promotion for over a decade himself, now sits at 8-11, with two no contests in the Octagon and has dropped four straight fights.

The finishes were a theme on the night, as featherweight Lerryan Douglas (14-5 MMA) of Brazil needed 3:33 of the opening round to deliver a devastating TKO against Julian Erosa (31-13 MMA). Douglas has now won his last six in a row while Erosa continues to struggle at 9-9 in the UFC.

At middleweight, Yousri Belgaroui of the Netherlands scored a third-round TKO stoppage against Mansur Abdul-Malik by landing a perfectly timed knee to end the fight in a back-and-forth battle. Belgaroui (10-3 MMA) has won five straight and remains undefeated in the UFC. Conversely, it was Abdul-Malik’s (9-1-1 MMA) first professional loss, as he had won seven of his 11 outings by KO/TKO.

The main card got underway in emphatic fashion in the opener, with lightweight Terrance McKinney needing just 24 seconds to dispatch Canadian Kyle Nelson with a series of punches following a head kick. McKinney (18-8 MMA) has won three of his last four, while Nelson (17-7-1 MMA) has lost two of his last three.

–Field Level Media