PHILADELPHIA _ Sergei Bobrovsky, the Flyers' goalie of the past, outplayed Carter Hart, the team's goalie of the future, in Saturday's matinee at the Wells Fargo Center.
Bobrovsky, the two-time Vezina winner as the league's best goalie, continued his dominance over his former team as Columbus defeated the Flyers, 4-3.
Hart, betrayed by his defense on the first three goals, suffered his first NHL loss after wins against Detroit and Nashville. Interim coach Scott Gordon (2-1) also absorbed his first defeat since replacing Dave Hakstol.
Bobrovsky, a prospective unrestricted free agent on July 1, is 13-3-1 with a goals-against average around 2.00 in his career against the Flyers, including a 3-0 record this season.
The Flyers, who outshot Columbus by a 37-19 margin, face the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night and Michal Neuvirth is expected to make just his third start of the season and first since Dec. 9.
Cam Atkinson scored two goals, Artemi Panarin had three points, and Pierre-Luc Dubois collected three assists for Columbus, which is 4-0-1 in its last five games.
Dubois' line dominated the unit of Wayne Simmonds (minus-3), Sean Couturier (minus-4), and Jake Voracek (minus-4).
With Hart pulled for an extra skater, James van Riemsdyk cut it to 4-3 by scoring on a wild scramble in front with 1:10 to go, but the Flyers couldn't get the equalizer.
Simmonds, skating down the right wing on an odd-man rush, was robbed by Bobrovsky with 9:35 left in regulation. The 30-year-old goalie made a diving save of Simmonds' right-circle blast to keep the Blue Jackets ahead, 4-2. Bobrovsky later made great power-play saves on Claude Giroux and Ivan Provorov.
Panarin, after Dubois won a draw from Couturier, scored with 36.5 seconds left in the second to increase Columbus' lead to 4-2.
The Jackets had made it 3-2 after Voracek went down at the Blue Jackets' offensive blue line, and Columbus went in on a two-on-zero break that ended with Atkinson's second goal of the game and 22nd of the season. That snapped a 2-all tie with 6:37 to go in the second.
Hart couldn't be faulted for any of the three goals.
About four minutes earlier, Hart made an acrobatic save on Atkinson, but the high-scoring right winger put in his own rebound to tie game at 2 with 10:30 left in the second. No defenseman picked him up.
The goal was scored 1:50 after Phil Varone's first goal as a Flyer gave the host a 2-1 lead. It was his sixth NHL goal and first since 2016, when he played for Buffalo.
The fourth-line center was all alone as he pounced on a fat rebound allowed by Bobrovsky on a shot taken by van Riemsdyk.
Earlier, the Flyers were going through another disorganized, uneventful power-play shift when Couturier picked up a loose puck in the high slot and whipped a backhander past Bobrovsky, knotting the game at 1-1 with 23 seconds left in the opening period.
"It wasn't the hardest shot, but it found its way in," said Giroux, who won a faceoff and then screened Bobrovsky on Couturier's team-high 14th goal, scored with two seconds remaining on the power play.
It was just the Flyers' second power-play goal in their last 14 games. Despite having players with great power-play histories, they had been in a 1-for-31 drought with an extra skater.
Columbus had taken a 1-0 lead when Provorov, who looks like a shell of the player from his first two seasons, coughed up the puck and it led to Zach Werenski's goal from the high slot with 4:55 remaining in the first.
