The game: 10:00 PM ET, NBCSP, 93.3 WMMR
After a long wait for the Flyers to finally get rolling with their regular season, the games are now coming at us fast. We saw them — well, those of us insane enough to be awake for a 10 PM puck drop — open their season last night in Vancouver, and put together a reasonably solid effort. It wasn’t perfect, and some ugly defensive breakdowns came close to sinking them — interesting that they seem to be going with the same defense group tonight though, but more on that later — but they managed to get themselves to overtime thanks to a pair of goals by Tyson Foerster and Cam York, and ultimately won out in the shootout.
They’re still working on polishing up some things, but they’re hoping to do it on the go, and keep the momentum rolling into tonight’s Flyers After Dark showing in Calgary — and hand the Flames their first loss of the season in the process.
Players to watch
Noah Cates
It doesn’t look like we’re going to see too much shuffling in the lineup tonight, but the big change of note is that after a fine but not spectacular debut last night, Jett Luchanko is coming out of the lineup, and Noah Cates will be slotting in, after starting the season as a healthy scratch. And it’s a pretty big opportunity for Cates here — he had a tough season last year, and hasn’t seemed to have gained all of the ground he lost back, but this is his chance to hit the ground running in these more meaningful games, and get himself back into the conversation for a more permanent roster spot. Now, this will surely be a bit of a process, but we’ll see what kind of foundation he’s able to lay in the minutes he gets tonight.
Sam Ersson
The most surprising bit of continuity from last night to tonight is that it’s looking like Ersson will again be starting in goal. Now, we know that John Tortorella isn’t afraid to keep the ball rolling and play his goaltender on both nights of a back-to-back, and given the game that Ersson put together last night — stopping 24 of the 26 shots he faced (including eight of the nine high danger shots) and limiting the Canucks to just two goals, versus their 3.13 Expected Goals, and leading the team to a shootout win — perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that he wants to keep riding the clearly hot hand. But also, we also have to think that the Flyers are going to want to actually see what they have in Ivan Fedotov, now that he’s had a summer to prepare for NHL action, and is getting into that action under more normal circumstances, and it feels a little strange that they wouldn’t be getting into that as soon as possible.
In any event, it’s clear that they see Ersson as The Guy, and he has a good chance in front of him to really solidify that with another solid showing tonight. We’ll see how this shakes out.
Matvei Michkov
After a pretty stellar run of play in the preseason, Michkov made his official Flyers debut last night, and while he didn’t absolutely set the world on fire in that debut, he did still manage some really positive flashes. He was held off the board, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He totaled four shots on goal on the night (which led the team), and also finished the game second on the team in individual Expected Goals, both at 5-on-5 and across all situations. His confidence with the puck was readily apparent, and we saw him creating chances well both at even strength and, perhaps more critically, on the power play.
All in all, there’s not much more we could have reasonably expected to see from Michkov in his debut, and he’s set himself a very solid foundation for going forward. It feels like it won’t be long at all before the points start to come for him.
The lineup
Besides Cates coming into the lineup and Ersson staying in, the most notable roster (non)update is that Emil Andrae, despite being recalled from Lehigh Valley and joining the team in Calgary, will remain a scratch for tonight, and the defense looks to be lining up the same as it did last night. The forward lines, though, are a bit of a question mark, as they were put in a bit of a blender last night, but this is more or less what we ended up with as the game went one. We’ll have to wait until warmups for confirmation, though.
Michkov – Frost – Konecny
Tippett – Couturier – Foerster
Farabee – Cates – Brink
Laughton – Poehling – Hathaway
York – Sanheim
Johnson – Drysdale
Zamula – Ristolainen
Ersson
(Fedotov)
