Techniques are identified for optimizing the MAC flush in Ethernet rings for faster traffic restoration. In one embodiment, flushing of MAC addresses is performed only once on receiving a first control message. For example, when a first control message is received, a network device may switch from a first state to a second state, which may indicate that the MAC addresses are not to be flushed if additional control messages are received. In another embodiment, flushing of MAC addresses is performed on one ring port rather than on both ring ports. For example, a flag field of a control message header may be used to determine on which port to flush. In another embodiment, flushing of MAC addresses is performed on only one ring port of an interconnection node. For example, the ring port can be determined using a flag field and possibly labels associated with the ring ports.