Matvei Michkov scores 2 goals and Flyers beat Avalanche 3-2 for 2nd straight win

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Matvei Michkov scored two goals and the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 on Monday night for their second straight victory after opening the season with nine consecutive losses.

Michkov leads the Flyers with six goals this season. Noel Acciari also scored for Philadelphia, which lost six games in regulation and three in overtime or shootouts before breaking through on Saturday with a victory over Ottawa.

Joseph Woll made 24 saves for his first victory with the Flyers. He spent the previous five seasons with Toronto.

Martin Necas and rookie T.J. Hughes scored for the Avalanche (5-3-1), last season's Presidents' Trophy winners. Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 21 shots.

Cole Knuble made his NHL debut for the Flyers, the team he grew up rooting for. His father, Mike, played for Philadelphia from 2005-09 and in 2013. The 22-year-old right wing had 13 minutes, 44 seconds of ice time.

Mitchkov scored on a power play at 7:41 of the first period and made it 2-0 at 12:23 of the second when he skated around the net and fired a long-range wrist shot past several players that beat Blackwood on the glove side.

Necas got the Avalanche on the board with 2:08 left in the second. Acciari restored Philadelphia's two-goal lead at 6:34 of the third, the veteran center's first goal as a Flyer.

Hughes scored at 14:40 of the third, his second straight game with a goal after he found the net for the first time in Friday's win over Pittsburgh.

Avalanche: At New Jersey on Tuesday.

Flyers: At Buffalo on Wednesday.

See AP’s full NHL coverage here

Philadelphia Flyers' Cole Knuble walks to the ice before an NHL hockey game against the Colorado Avalanche Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Colorado Avalanche's T.J. Hughes (13) collides with Philadelphia Flyers' Hunter McDonald (19) during the first period of an NHL hockey game Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Flyers' Trevor Zegras (46) cannot get a shot past Colorado Avalanche's Mackenzie Blackwood (39) and Nathan MacKinnon (29) during the second period of an NHL hockey game Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Flyers' Matvei Michkov (39) cannot get a shot past Colorado Avalanche's Mackenzie Blackwood (39) and Brent Burns (84) during the second period of an NHL hockey game Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Flyers' Matvei Michkov celebrates after scoring a goal during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Colorado Avalanche Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea threatened Monday to resume propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts and deploy more weapons along the border with South Korea, as the rivals remain locked in animosities over last month’s mine blasts that injured three South Korean soldiers.

Earlier this month, South Korea formally blamed North Korea-planted mines for the Sept. 21 blasts at the border, urging the North to apologize and remove other mines. That announcement came after North Korea denied responsibility for the explosions and warned of strong retaliation if provoked.

On Monday, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accused South Korea of firing warning shots and making warning broadcasts numerous times at the border since August under “such an unreasonable pretext” that North Korean soldiers crossed the border. She said that such provocations “have gone beyond the red line” since the mine blasts.

“A grave situation is prevailing along the southern border due to the reckless behavior of the ROK military gangsters,” Kim Yo Jong said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

She said the North Korean military was considering “deploying more tactical strike means along the southern border as a preemptive and suppressive measure to deal with contingency, and of resuming the loudspeaker broadcasting against the ROK.”

On Tuesday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Jin Yong-Sung, called the North Korean threats “intolerable” and ordered the military to “sternly respond” to potential provocations by the North. Jin said South Korea's military will firmly deal with border breaches by North Korean troops, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In recent years, tensions along the Korean border, one of the world's most heavily fortified, have increased as North Korea added mines, barbed wire fences, anti-tank barriers and other front-line fortifications in line with its policy of terminating ties with South Korea.

South Korea’s military earlier said North Korean soldiers violated the border’s military demarcation line 50 times this year during their fortification works. South Korea’s military said it responded by firing warning shots and making warning broadcasts. It didn’t immediately respond to the latest North Korean warning.

In 2015, mine blasts blamed on North Korea that maimed two South Korean soldiers pushed the Koreas to the brink of an armed conflict, after South Korea resumed front-line loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years.

Loudspeaker broadcasts are one of the old-fashioned, Cold War-era psychological warfare campaigns the two Koreas have occasionally used against each other in times of confrontation.

Since taking office last year, South Korea's liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, halted such broadcasts as part of efforts to improve ties with North Korea. North Korea later stopped its own broadcasts.

North Korea has recently dialed up weapons testing activities in a likely bid to pressure the United States to make bigger concessions, after President Donald Trump renewed his efforts to restore diplomacy with Kim Jong Un.

FILE - A soldier stands at a North Korean military guard post next to loudspeakers, seen from Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, on Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, delivers a speech during a national meeting against the coronavirus, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 10, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

North Korea's Kaepoong village is seen from the Peace Observation Post near the border with North Korea, in Gwanghwa, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A North Korean soldier stands at a North Korean military guard post near the border with North Korea, in Paju, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A North Korean military guard post is seen from the Peace Observation Post near the border with North Korea, in Gwanghwa, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)