After a tough loss back on home ice on Wednesday, the Flyers are hitting the road for a quick two-game road trip. Tonight, they’ll be facing off against a struggling Blues squad for the first game of their back-to-back (and what’s to be their first against the Blues in the span of a week) and they’ll be looking to get the ball rolling early, gaining back some ground and, what’s more, making a strong impression on their annual Fathers’ Trip.
Puck drop: 8:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP+
📻: 93.3 WMMR
Pregame reading
- Wednesday’s game against the Oilers was a bit of a weird one, but it was undoubtedly another good game for Matvei Michkov, who might be, dare we say, back? [BSH]
- The Flyers are getting a good bit of offense from him now, which is a good thing, because the team’s level of production this season has taken a bit of a dip from last season. [BSH]
- And finally, before we get rolling with this next Flyers game, let’s catch up on some prospect related happenings. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 8-5-3 (6th in Metro)
Goals: Bobby Brink/Owen Tippett/Travis Konecny (5)
Assists: Trevor Zegras (12)
Points: Trevor Zegras (16)
Edmonton Oilers – 6-8-3 (6th in Central)
Goals: Jake Neighbors (6)
Assists: Oskar Sundkvist (7)
Points: Pius Suter (10)
Projected lineups
Matvei Michkov – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett – Christian Dvorak – Trevor Zegras
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Garnet Hathaway – Rodrigo Abols – Nic Deslauriers
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
Emil Andrae – Noah Juulsen
Sam Ersson
(Dan Vladar)
Pavel Buchnevich – Robert Thomas – Jimmy Snuggerud
Dylan Holloway – Dalibor Dvorsky – Jordan Kyrou
Brayden Schenn – Pius Suter – Mathieu Joseph
Alexey Toropchenko – Oskar Sundqvist – Nathan Walker
Philip Broberg – Colton Parayko
Cam Fowler – Justin Faulk
Matthew Kessel – Hunter Skinner
Jordan Binnington
(Joel Hofer)
Storylines to watch
Ersson gets the nod
After a reasonably solid showing from Dan Vladar on Wednesday, and the expectation that he’ll be tasked as a result with facing the more difficult opponent in the Stars tomorrow night, this leaves Sam Ersson as the choice to get the start tonight in St. Louis. And he’s coming into this one, all things considered, in a decent spot. That is, his first game back from injury last weekend against the Senators was a good enough showing from him — not perfect, but pretty good — and he’s gotten quite a bit more rest and practice time in since then, and combining that with the fact that he’ll be going up against one of the lower scoring offenses in the league tonight (more on that later), if there was ever a prime opportunity to keep building his game in the right direction, this would be it.
Deslauriers stays in
We talked earlier this week about the Flyers’ continued struggles to find a fourth line arrangement that’s really working for them, and how the trio of Nikita Grebenkin, Rodrigo Abols, and Garnet Hathaway have been giving them some of their best looks of late, only for the Flyers to turn around and decide it would be best to break them up after their best showing of the season and put Nic Deslauriers in in the place of Grebenkin. And despite a less solid showing against the Oilers and Deslauriers not even cracking seven minutes of ice time in that one, he’ll be staying in the lineup for tonight’s game in St. Louis. And whether it’s physicality that they’re looking for, or some veteran presence that’s led to the decision, it’s impossible to say, but that line is getting another chance to make a statement, and we’ll see what they’re able to do with it.
Will this be exciting? TBD
This matchup is sure to be an interesting one, but particularly for the fact that it will be a meeting of two teams who have really been struggling to put pucks in the back of the net so far this season. As it stands, the Flyers are sitting second from the bottom of the league standings in scoring, with 41 goals on the season, and the Blues have only done just a bit better, as they sit sixth from the bottom with 47 goals of their own. This matchup might have something of a stoppable force meets movable object feel to it, were it not for the fact that, while the Flyers have been at least equally stingy in the number of goals they’ve allowed this season (also 41), the Blues have not had the same luck, as they’ve allowed 64 to date, making for a rough -17 differential.
Now, this all might be interesting, but will it be exciting necessarily? That’s yet to be seen. There’s some potential here for the Flyers though, but they have to do their part to rise to the occasion.
Anything but overtime, please
And finally, we’ll close this out with a reminder that the last two Flyers games ended rather unfortunately in losses in overtime, and we’re hoping that the third time can be the charm here, as it were, and whatever the outcome of this game winds up being, that it can be taken care of in regulation. We’re just about overtimed out over here.
