The Philadelphia Flyers are shipping up to Boston (ugh), to face the Bruins in the fifth of their seven preseason games. We swear we’re almost done. We swear these games will start to mean something. Maybe?
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: Flyers website, NESN
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- Nikita Grebenkin (who is playing tonight) is making an incredibly strong case to make the Flyers’ opening night roster. Brad combs through some tape of his from this preseason to understand why. [BSH]
- We did not expect Rodrigo Abols to have a stellar preseason but here he is, leading the pack of Flyers bubble forwards to make the team. [BSH]
- Alex Bump is not playing tonight but Maddie thinks that it’s best for the Flyers to remain patient and he should start his season in the AHL. [BSH]
Pregame watching
Projected lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Nikita Grebenkin — Jett Luchanko — Garnet Hathaway
Anthony Richard — Jacob Gaucher — Denver Barkey
Nic Deslauriers — Rodrigo Abols — Alexis Gendron
Dennis Gilbert — Noah Juulsen
Hunter McDonald — Emil Andrae
Adam Ginning — Egor Zamula
Ty Murchison
Dan Vladar
(Aleksei Kolosov)
Boston Bruins
Morgan Geekie — Elias Lindholm — David Pastrnak
Pavel Zacha — Caset Mittelstadt — Victor Arvidsson
Matej Blumel — Fraser Minten — Matt Poitras
Tanner Jeannot — Sean Kuraly — Dans Locmelis
Hampus Lindholm — Andrew Peeke
Nikita Zadorov — Charlie McAvoy
Frederic Brunet — Jonathan Aspirot
Jeremy Swayman
(Michael DiPietro)
Storylines to watch
Tyson Foerster back and on a familiar line
Foerster has fully recovered from the weird infection he had in his arm and is back playing some hockey. All we hope is that he can use the next few games to get enough minutes to hit the ground running on October 9.
What might help with that is some familiar faces. Rick Tocchet is keeping together a line that John Tortorella put together, as Foerster is hitting the ice for the first time this season alongside Noah Cates and Bobby Brink to form the “first” line tonight. While we shouldn’t have any major takeaways from the preseason, we could watch out to see if the chemistry remained in-tact.
Jett Luchanko given another opportunity to show something
Luchanko is in a tough spot. He’s not impressed as much as he did last season — or, were we just excited about the shiny new prospect and it was surprising he was that good for an 18-year-old? — but he hasn’t been outright terrible either. We suspect that he will be staying a little bit longer no matter what, but this week we should find out if he’s going back to the OHL or starting his season with the Flyers. If we don’t find out this week, don’t blame us.
The blue line is: A mess
Well, in the projected roster for tonight’s game there is no true anchoring presence. Other times throughout the season we would see Cam York or Travis Sanheim with a group of rookies or roster hopefuls, but tonight they are kind of on their own.
Helge Grans was already cut and waived to go down to the AHL, and by playing almost every single defenseman that’s on the bubble tonight, we hopefully see some separation from players that could survive to be temporarily the Flyers’ bottom pairing, or will follow Grans down to Allentown.
Bruins icing virtually their full NHL lineup
On the other side of the ice, it’s a classic preseason scenario. A team has to give their home crowd some players that they actually know, so out comes the David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy-led crew to skate around and maybe not give their full effort against a group of rambunctious Flyers.
