PHILADELPHIA – Scott Laughton spent the first 12 years of his NHL career with the Flyers, so Thursday night’s return to Philadelphia as a Toronto Maple Leaf was emotional. At the first break in action, the Flyers played a video tribute to Laughton, who received a loud ovation from Xfinity Mobile Arena. Laughton was injured for the Leafs’ first trip to Philadelphia on Nov. 1. During his time here, Laughton was one of the most popular players in the locker room, a workhorse who competed at a high level even when the team struggled for a number of years. When former coach John Tortorella decided to go without a captain the season after trading Claude Giroux, he had to at least appoint one player to wear a letter to communicate with referees during games. He gave Laughton an alternate’s “A,” a signal of a certain respect among players. One of those was defenseman Travis Sanheim, who was looking forward to seeing Laughton skate for the first time here and gauge the fans’ reaction. “I’m more interested to see how he is,” Sanheim said after morning skate. “He likes to be involved in chirping, get under the other team’s skin a little bit.” Then Sanheim chuckled before completing that thought. “Maybe TK (Travis Konecny) and him can have a little bit of a battle,” Sanheim said with a grin. Laughton said he’s both a friend and, or this night, a rival of Konecny. “He’s a rat, he’s a long-time rat,” Laughton said with a smirk. “So I’m sure he’ll be chirping. But he can back it up for sure. He’s a really good player and a really good friend. We grew very close with my time here.” The 31-year-old native of Oakville, Ontario, played in 661 games with the Flyers. He tallied 106 goals and 265 points. The Flyers selected him in the first round (20th overall) of the 2012 NHL Draft. • • • Matvei Michkov returned to action after missing one game due to a foot injury suffered last Saturday in Edmonton. Both Jamie Drysdale and Bobby Brink were injured in Tuesday night’s win over Anaheim and did not play against the Leafs. Coach Rick Tocchet didn’t provide a timeline for their returns. Noah Juulsen took Drysdale’s spot, paired with Emil Andrae. Carl Grundstrom moved up to play in Brink’s spot on a line with Noah Cates and Michkov. • • • Konecny just completed one of the best half-seasons of his career. His 37 points are commendable, but his plus-13 jumps off the page. He could very well challenge his full-season career best of plus-17 set in 2017-18. Konecny and Trevor Zegras seem to have found chemistry on the ice, which might explain why Zegras is off to such a hot start with 17 goals. Konecny was named an alternate captain last season and takes the role seriously. “I love the kid,” Tocchet said. “For me, he does some stuff where you go ‘what is he doing?’ But then he does some stuff like, ‘Wow!’ There’s a balance there but he’s an unreal guy in the room. “This is a close room and this is one of the reasons why. Whether it’s a football pool or a (team) dinner, he’s leading the brigade. If it’s an unacceptable first period, he’s saying it. He’s very responsible for that room being close.” It took a while for Konecny to catch on to Tocchet’s system. But now that he has, good things are happening. “There’s a sweet spot that he’s trying to find,” Tocchet said. “Early in the year he was just throwing pucks away. He wasn’t moving his feet. That’s stuff he had to clean up. He would come to the bench and say, ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’ And I would say, ‘well, then don’t do it. Now he’s just making better decisions.” ...read more read less