The Philadelphia Flyers are off in Vancouver to face a Canucks team that got a little bit run over the last time these two teams collided just over a week ago. No major differences between the rosters or setup, but it is hockey so no one truly knows how this one will play out, despite the Flyers earning a decisive 5-2 win when the Canucks visited them.
Puck drop: 10:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 93.3 WMMR
Pregame reading
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 19-11-7 (3rd in Metro)
Goals: Trevor Zegras (15)
Assists: Travis Konecny/Trevor Zegras (22)
Points: Trevor Zegras (37)
Vancouver Canucks – 16-19-3 (8th in Pacific)
Goals: Kiefer Sherwood (16)
Assists: Filip Hronek (20)
Points: Elias Pettersson (23)
Projected lineups
Trevor Zegras — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Denver Barkey — Sean Couturier — Owen Tippett
Matvei Michkov — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Carl Grundstrom — Rodrigo Abols — Nikita Grebenkin
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Rasmus Ristolainen
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Evander Kane — Elias Pettersson — Brock Boeser
Liam Ohgren — Marco Rossi — Conor Garland
Drew O’Connor — Aatu Raty — Kiefer Sherwood
Nils Hoglander — Max Sasson — Linus Karlsson
Marcus Pettersson — Filip Hronek
Tyler Myers — Elias Pettersson
Zeev Buium — Tom Willander
Kevin Lankinen
(Thatcher Demko)
Storylines to watch
Can the Flyers repeat?
On December 22, when these two teams faced off for the first time this season — if we can all remember what happened just over a week ago but before the holiday haze — the Flyers looked like the much, much better team. A rare occurrence of the Flyers managing to actually outshoot the opponent by over 10 shots, they hosted the Canucks and treated them to a very strong performance that featured the new-look fourth line, that we have crowned The GAG Line, breaking out and scoring a couple.
Now, can they do the same thing? Will this same lineup just barrel over the Canucks but now in Vancouver? Or now with more than just a week or so after the Quinn Hughes trade, is this team more confident in their ability to withstand that sort of unrelenting pressure? We’ll see, I guess.
Can Denver Barkey continue this magical first NHL experience?
Denver Barkey is someone we cannot stop thinking about. Honestly, ever since he was drafted (and even before that), watching him be a 5-foot-9 wrecking ball on the ice that will not stop pushing and pushing until his team has the puck back, made us wait with bated breath for his time in the NHL. It was never a sure thing, even coming into this season, but now four games into his career and he just never stops.
The 20-year-old winger has been extremely consistent in his game (really since he was a rookie in the OHL) and it has surprisingly been able to stick up with the Flyers. With no one really pushing him to leave the lineup other than a grizzled veteran like Garnet Hathaway, now we’re just wondering if he can keep this up.
