The Game: 10:00 PM ET, NBCSP+, ESPN+, 93.3 WMMR
Happy New Year, folks! 2025 (which still feels a little bit like a fake year) is officially upon us, and the Flyers are getting right back underway with a big game to kick things off. The Flyers, as we well know, have been struggling to get much going in the way of consistency and momentum through the first part of this season, but the good news is that they finished out 2024 on a high note, with a commanding win over the San Jose Sharks to sweep the season series, and managed to pull themselves back up into the sixth position in the Metro as a reward. They still have a lot of work to do, but the hope is that they’re able to keep the ball rolling and kick off this new calendar year on a high note.
Between them and that aim, of course, are the Vegas Golden Knights, and they’re not going to make this easy on the Flyers. They’ve had themselves a very successful start to the season pretty much across the board — they’re sitting at the top of the Pacific division and second in the whole of the West, with the fifth highest scoring offense in the whole league, and a fourth-best in the league goal differential (+29). There’s a whole lot going right for them this season, but for the fact that they also lost their last game of the year to a struggling Canadiens team, and they’ll be looking to get themselves back on track in short order. All of this makes for a pretty lopsided looking matchup on paper, and a difficult task for the Flyers, but we’ll see how they fare with this one.
Storylines to watch
Depth getting it done
If the Flyers want to be able to hang with the Golden Knights in this one, they’re going to need to give their goaltender a bit of run support, and to pull that off, they’ll need some help from, well, just about everyone in the lineup. It’s a high bar to reach, having everyone going at the same time, but the good news is that the Flyers of late have been getting really good contributions to their scoring mix from their depth players. Over the last three games, they’ve gotten goals from Noah Cates, Joel Farabee (and then Joel Farabee again), Tyson Foerster, and Ryan Poehling up front, as well as Nick Seeler and Egor Zamula. Things have been clicking nicely for these more peripheral players, and it’s taken some of the stress off the shoulders of the top of the lineup guys, and the hope is that they’ll be able to keep that rolling into tonight’s matchup.
Goalie watch
Speaking of the goaltender needing a bit of extra support, that’s coming from the fact that their whole situation just got a bit more complicated, with Sam Ersson taking an injury in Tuesday’s game in San Jose, and set to be out for the next little while with another lower body injury. Aleksei Kolosov came in in relief of Ersson for the third period of that game and played well, and he’s been rewarded for that with the start for tonight, with Ivan Fedotov backing up again. Kolosov is clearly the hot hand and the holder of the coach’s favor at the moment, but he’ll have a difficult task in this one, going up against one of the hotter offenses in the league. We’ll see how he handle it.
In the big picture, the Flyers are still looking for a more conclusive answer to their backup question, and trying to juggle getting both Kolosov and Fedotov starts while also trying to win games (meaning leaning on their most tested starter in Ersson) hasn’t been an easy balance to strike. Fedotov hasn’t seen any playing action since way back on December 5 against the Panthers, and while we’re not hoping that Ersson’s out for long, his absence should open the door for Fedotov to at least get a bit more action than he’s seen of late.
Some momentum please?
We’ve said it already and we’ll say it one more time: the Flyers have left something to be desired for much of this season as far as carrying momentum over from one game to next goes. They played a good game and picked up a huge win over the Ducks over the weekend, and while they started well in their following game against the Kings, they let that one really get away from them as it went on. But again, they responded with a big win over the Sharks, and what they do next from here is the big, open question. This is going to be a tough game for them, we’ve established that too, and while a big commanding win would be a tall order, we can consider it a positive if the Flyers are at least able to make this one competitive. It’s all about small steps forward, and that’s a more reasonable bar to reach.
The lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Scott Laughton – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett – Morgan Frost – Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Joel Farabee – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Egor Zamula – Rasmus Ristolainen
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
Aleksei Kolosov
(Ivan Fedotov)
Vegas Golden Knights
Victor Olofsson – Jack Eichel – Mark Stone
Tomas Hertl – William Karlsson – Keegan Kolesar
Tanner Pearson – Brett Howden – Pavel Dorofeyev
Jonas Rondbjerg – Cole Schwindt – Alexander Holtz
Noah Hanifin – Alex Pietrangelo
Brayden McNabb – Shea Theodore
Nicolas Hague – Zach Whitecloud
Ilya Samsonov
(Adin Hill)
