The Game: 1:00 PM, TNT, MAX, 97.5 The Fanatic
As if one bit of weekend matinee action for the Flyers wasn’t enough, we’re right back at it again this afternoon for a bit more, as the Flyers continue on their home stand and welcome the Devils to town. This home stand, we recall, has not been going great for the Flyers so far — they kicked it off with a pretty deflating 6-3 loss to the Flames on Tuesday, then followed up with a loss to the Jets in the rematch of last Saturday’s game (which went much more favorably for the Flyers), and then put up another tough loss to the Kraken yesterday. As John Tortorella said after yesterday’s game, things are kind of going in the wrong direction for them right now, and they’re looking around for answers. It’s not going to be easy, but here’s hoping that today can see them begin to course correct against a Devils team that’s kind of in a weird spot right now.
The Devils, that is, are a bit new-look, as they did some tinkering with their roster at the deadline, bringing in some new faces like Daniel Sprong, Cody Glass, Brian Dumoulin, and Dennis Cholowski, all of whom we expect to be in the lineup this afternoon. Now, will this be enough to offset the recent losses of Jack Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, and Jonas Seigenthaler to injury and allow them to hang on to a playoff spot? Time will tell, but for now, that’s a lot of new faces who are going to be looking to make a good impression on their new organization, and the Flyers will have to watch out for that especially.
Storylines to Watch
Meaningful games (for some, at least)
Speaking of boosts from new faces, the Flyers do have some of those in their mix (albeit in the context of call-ups). That is, Emil Andrae, Olle Lycksell, and Rodrigo Abols are all with the team this weekend on recalls from the Phantoms, and while we’ll acknowledge that their collective energies might not be enough to right the ship for the team completely, they certainly could help. But, perhaps more importantly for these players, they’ll just be looking to make the most of these minutes and make a strong impression on the organization, because there’s a lot at stake for them on individual levels. Andrae is trying to play himself into the regular rotation on defense for the rest of the season, and audition early for next season, while Lycksell and Abols are playing for new contracts, as theirs are both up over the summer. It’s a worthwhile reminder that, while the team is really well and truly out of the mix for a push for a playoff spot, these games are still meaningful for some guys around here, and it will be interesting to see what they do with these opportunities.
Back to Fedotov
Yesterday was another tough loss for the Flyers, but a tough one for Sam Ersson in particular, who’s hit a bit of a run of down play recently. Given this, and the fact that we’re looking at a back-to-back situation here, it stands to reason that Ersson will get the afternoon more or less off, and the Flyers will go back to Ivan Fedotov for the start. This will be his first game back in net since his relief showing on Tuesday, where he played pretty well — stopping 26 of the 28 shots he faced, and doing reasonably well to stop the bleeding after a very poor start for Ersson — and he’ll be looking to build on that here. It’s going to be a collective effort needed to pull themselves out of the hole they’ve dug here, and Fedotov can be a big part of finding these answers for the Flyers, if he can bring a solid showing.
Figuring it out
All of this said, it is really important for the Flyers to begin to course correct here sooner rather than later. We understand how that can and will be difficult, as they work through some difficult feelings on the human side of things — trades are hard, but the blow of losing well-liked teammates in Erik Johnson and particularly Scott Laughton on a room still slightly reeling from the loss of Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee just over a month ago makes all of this extra hard — and we’ll certainly give them some grace while they do that. But it’s important, if nothing else, for morale to begin winning some games and avoiding positively limping to the end of the season. It’s going to be a long and arduous process to build themselves back up again, but the hope is that they can make at least the first small step if not today, then soon. But time will tell.
The Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Owen Tippett – Ryan Poehling – Travis Konecny
Olle Lycksell – Sean Couturier – Matvei Michkov
Nic Deslauriers – Rodrigo Abols – Jakob Pelletier
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae – Rasmus Ristolainen
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
Ivan Fedotov
(Sam Ersson)
New Jersey Devils
Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Stefan Noesen
Ondrej Palat – Dawson Mercer – Jesper Bratt
Erik Haula – Cody Glass – Daniel Sprong
Tomas Tatar – Curtis Lazar – Nathan Bastian
Luke Hughes – Brett Pesce
Brian Dumolin – Johnathan Kovacevic
Brenden Dillon – Dennis Cholowski
Jacob Markstrom
(Jake Allen)
