The Game: 7:00 PM, NBCSP, ESPN+, 97.5 The Fanatic
We’ve officially made it through another installment of Flyers After Dark, and with the quick trip out West having come to a close — and a tough one at that — the Flyers are back at it at home tonight for their penultimate game before the 4 Nations break.
And this matchup against the Capitals looks like it’s squaring up to be something of a game of opposites. The Flyers, last we saw them, were being dealt a pretty crushing overtime loss to Utah, and extending their losing streak to four games. With that, too, they fell into the last place in the Metro standings, behind the Penguins. On the flip side, though they did lose in overtime to the Jets in their second to last game, the Capitals got back on track with a huge win over the Panthers on Tuesday. They have wins in seven of their last 10 games, and points in nine of them, and they’re kind of running away with the East — they’re nine points up on the second place in the Metro Hurricanes, and 10 points up on the Panthers at the top of the Atlantic standings. In short, everything kind of seems to be clicking for the Caps right now, and this is sure to be an interesting one for the Flyers.
Storylines To Watch
The scoring drought is over… now what?
The Flyers may not have come away from that game in Utah with a win, and that’s a shame given how they played for most of that game, but the big positive news from that one was that they finally, finally, managed to score a goal and stop a historically long drought. It’s a small victory, but a victory all the same.
But, with that bit of work done and dusted, what happens next? The Flyers are still working with the same depleted forward group (more on that later) and they’re still not exactly looking like the same high-powered offense that they’ve flashed at times this season. We’re trying to keep our expectations reasonable for this game, for what the Flyers will be able to do offensively, but the one bit we’re hoping to see is them avoiding backsliding in a big way after making some progress in their last game.
New guy(s) time?
There was some talk, some hope, that tonight would be the first night that newly (but not that newly) acquired players Andrei Kuzmenko and Jakob Pelletier would be available to make their debuts with the Flyers… but it hasn’t quite worked out for them in that regard. The word is that they’re nearly out of visa paperwork limbo, but the flight from Toronto that would have gotten them to Philly in time for the game was cancelled. You truly can’t make this stuff up.
So, the Flyers look like they will be rolling with the same lineup that they did on Tuesday, which got them out of the scoring drought, but not the losing streak. It’ll be a little while longer for this more cobbled together group to keep things from going sideways in an even bigger way. It was going to be a tough matchup with these Capitals regardless, but it’s looking a little more dicey, still. Buckle in, folks.
One small change
One of change to the lineup from Tuesday, though, is that instead of Sam Ersson, it’ll be Ivan Fedotov getting the start. This will be his first start in the month of February, and the first we’ve seen him since that tough three-goals allowed showing in the loss to the Islanders on the 30th. He’s still very much working to cement his place as a regular at the NHL level, and this matchup is going to be a big challenge for him, in working towards that aim. After all, we’re looking at the second highest scoring offense in the league — the Capitals are averaging 3.55 goals per game (only the Jets score more than them), and they’re going to be riding high after putting up six goals on the Panthers (four on Sergei Bobrovsky) on Tuesday. It’ll be a big test, how he handles this, that much is for certain.
The Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Anthony Richard — Sean Couturier — Matvei Michkov
Scott Laughton — Rodrigo Abols — Travis Konecny
Nic Deslauriers — Jacob Gaucher — Garnet Hathaway
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae — Erik Johnson
Nick Seeler — Jamie Drysdale
Ivan Fedotov
(Sam Ersson)
Washington Capitals
Alex Ovechkin — Dylan Strome — Tom Wilson
Aliaksei Protas — Pierre-Luc Dubois — Connor McMichael
Taylor Raddysh — Lars Eller — Ethen Frank
Brandon Duhaime — Nic Dowd — Andrew Mangiapane
Rasmus Sandin — John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun — Trevor Van Riemsdyk
Martin Fehervary — Matt Roy
Charlie Lindgren
(Logan Thompson)
