No late-season 10-game losing streak for this Flyers team, no siree! With their shootout win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, the Flyers cut their winless streak at five games, putting them at 1-5-0 on their seven-game homestand. That’s still not great, but we’ll take a moral victory where we can. Tonight, they get another tough customer: the Carolina Hurricanes.
It’s has been a whirlwind 2025 for the Canes. A few months ago, they blew the hockey world away by trading Marty Necas and Jack Drury (plus some picks) for Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall. Unable to sign Rantanen before the deadline, Carolina traded him to the Dallas Stars for two 1st-round picks, two 2nd-round picks and rookie Logan Stankoven. With the dust settled, Carolina’s Stanley Cup chances took a hit; what Rantanen brings is impossible to replace in the short term and, by the time the deal with Dallas was done, GM Eric Tulsky didn’t have time to flip the picks he acquired for players that could help the team right now. There are two bright sides for Caniacs here: one is that the Eastern Conference is relatively weak, and the second is that Necas alone would not have brought back the return Carolina got from Dallas.
This will be the Flyers’ third and final meeting of the season with the Hurricanes, and the other two games have not gone Philadelphia’s way as they lost them both. The Flyers are icing a depleted, post-deadline roster beset by a couple of injuries to Rasmus Ristolainen and Garnet Hathaway, and their weaknesses have been exposed during this homestand. Bobby Brink alone won’t be enough to save them.
Storylines to Follow
The losing streak is over! What’s next?
This is a good thing or a bad thing, depending how you want to look at it. The good? The Flyers have, for now, avoided the annual eight-plus game losing streak, and their win over Tampa was carried almost entirely by Bobby Brink–a player young enough to be a part of this when the games matter. The bad? The Flyers are clearly out of playoff contention, and this “meaningless” win does nothing to help their draft odds. Still, these garbage time games present two opportunities: one, to see the character of players when the postseason is off the table and two, get games for young players whose junior/college/international seasons are ending. Nothing reported on that front at time of writing, but keep an eye out for contract signings come April.
Does the line shuffling continue?
After a sustained run of success, the Tyson Foerster, Noah Cates and Bobby Brink line was broken up–and by “broken up,” we mean Travis Konecny took Brink’s spot on the right wing. It didn’t do much for Konecny’s game, but it seemed to awaken a monster in Brink! Another player that deserves an opportunity on a better line? Jakob Pelletier. Playing him with Rodrigo Abols and Nic Deslauriers is not going to give you the best opportunity to see what he’s capable of; he should get a chance with Sean Couturier or Cates in an elevated role before the season’s over, preferably sooner than later.
Travis Konecny is the most snakebitten player in the league
Ok this is hyperbolic, but it sure feels that way. It’s been ten games since his last goal–right before the Four Nations tournament–and he may actually be cursed. In the shootout against the Lightning, he rang the puck of three posts…and it didn’t go in. There have been so many “pings,” and zero horns. It’d be great to see his scoring slump break today, as he’s just fallen off a point per game pace, so keep an eye on how John Tortorella utilizes Konecny to try and get him going.
Projected Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett – Sean Couturier – Matvei Michkov
Olle Lycksell – Ryan Poehling – Bobby Brink
Nic Deslauriers – Rodrigo Abols – Jakob Pelletier
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
Emil Andrae – Egor Zamula
Carolina Hurricanes
Jackson Blake – Sebastian Aho – Seth Jarvis
Taylor Hall – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Jack Roslovic
Jordan Martinook – Jordan Staal – Logan Stankoven
Eric Robinson – Mark Jankowski – Tyson Jost
Jaccob Slavin – Brent Burns
Shayne Gostisbehere (Hi, Shayne!) – Jalen Chatfield
Sean Walker – Scott Morrow
Pyotr Kochetkov
(Freddie Andersen)
Gameday Tunes
Daylight saving and the springtime weather is doing a lot of heavy lifting for everyone’s mood ’round these parts, and it’s about time to bust out those summer playlists!
Stats courtesy Hockey Reference
