The day has finally arrived! After three long days off, the Flyers are back in action and set to kick off their first bit of playoff action in six years tonight in Pittsburgh. It’s the next installment of this series between bitter rivals, and a big test for this young Flyers team. The trial by fire is before them, and we’ll see how they fare in it.
Puck drop: 8:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP/ESPN+
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- As they get into this matchup, there’s a good bit that the Flyers could take from how their regular season series with the Penguins played out. [BSH]
- Likewise, their last Game 1 against Pittsburgh, all the way back in that 2018 series, should provide some lessons for a similarly young team facing a more experienced one. [BSH]
- And finally, here’s how The Experts are predicting this series is going to play out. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 43-27-12 (3rd in Metro)
Goals: Owen Tippett (28)
Assists: Travis Konecny (41)
Points: Travis Konecny (68)
Pittsburgh Penguins – 41-25-16 (2nd in Metro)
Goals: Anthony Mantha (33)
Assists: Erik Karlsson (51)
Points: Sidney Crosby (74)
Projected lineups
Tyson Foerster — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Travis Konecny — Christian Dvorak — Porter Martone
Denver Barkey — Noah Cates — Matvei Michkov
Luke Glendening — Sean Couturier — Garnet Hathaway
Sanheim – Ristolainen
York – Drysdale
Seeler – Andrae
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Egor Chinakhov — Sidney Crosby — Bryan Rust
Tommy Novak — Rickard Rakell — Evgeni Malkin
Elmer Soderblom — Ben Kindel — Anthony Mantha
Connor Dewar — Blake Lizotte — Noel Acciari
Parker Wotherspoon — Erik Karlsson
Sam Girard — Kris Letang
Ryan Shea — Connor Clifton
Stuart Skinner
(Arturs Silovs)
Storylines to watch
Will the power play break through?
The Flyers were able to break through on the power play in four of their last six games to end the season — four in five during games when they were icing a more normal lineup — and have been building up a steady bit of momentum on the man-advantage. We hesitate to suggest that all of their problems are fixed, but they’ve clearly been working towards finding some solutions down the stretch, and the hope is that this enough to get them to the point where they could do something on the power play in this series. Things are trending in the right direction, but we’ll see how we’ll they’re able to keep that going.
Can the Flyers contain the Penguins’ offense?
As we discussed in our broader preview of the series, the Flyers did some good work throughout their four meetings in the regular season to limit the volume of chances that the Penguins could generate, and if they’re able to deliver some similar work, this will certainly work in their favor. That said, this isn’t going to be an easy task for them — this Penguins team, throughout the course of the regular season, ranked second in the league in goals scored at 5-on-5 (with 201, good for an average of 2.45 goals per game) and third in the league in scoring across all situations (290 goals, 3.54 goals per game), and they’ve still seen firsthand how quickly their offense can get rolling and have a game getting away from them, as their two losses to the Penguins already this season saw them put up five and six goals on them. The Flyers won’t be taking them lightly, and their first order of business will be sticking to their structure which has worked well at suppressing shots, while also making sure to limit the ugly breakdowns which proved costly during those earlier matchups. The Flyers have depth on their side on the back end, but this is going to be a big test for a defense group which is largely still quite inexperienced in playoff hockey.
Keeping the moment manageable
And that, too, points to one of the biggest tasks that the team gas ahead of them in this one. This is a truly tremendous moment for this largely quite young and inexperienced team, and while the gravity of the situation won’t be lost on anyone, it’s going to be important that they don’t allow this moment to become too big, to allow nerves to set in to a degree that they completely get in the way. This will be a learning experience no matter what, and while there’s certainly a degree of the Flyers playing with house money at work here, they’re still a team that’s worked hard and deserves their place in the postseason.
