The Game: 6:00 PM EST, NBCSP, ESPN+, 97.5 The Fanatic
We’re back with a bit of slightly earlier evening hockey, as the Flyers head down to Sunrise, Florida to face off against the Panthers in their final game of this brief road trip. That road trip has been a bit of a mixed bag, with the Flyers losing a bit of a heartbreaker to the Hurricanes to kick it off, and then rising and rallying to beat the Lightning in a shootout on Thursday. This has been enough to keep them from falling into the absolute last place in the league, but they’re still kicking around in the basement of the standings. Things look like they might just be trending in the right direction for them again, but they’ve fallen into a pretty deep hole, and it’s going to take some time and serious doing to get out of it.
The Flyers want to keep the ball rolling and finish the road trip out on a high note, but it’s not going to be easy for them. As it stands, the Panthers are sitting at the top of the Eastern Conference (one point up on the Hurricanes), and are riding a six game winning streak, with points in nine of their last ten games played. They’re also touting the second highest scoring total in the East, and this staring down a deeply unproven presumed starter in Ivan Fedotov (more on him later) makes this matchup a little scary. But we’ll see how it all shakes out.
Players To Watch
Matvei Michkov
With no morning skate on the schedule for today, the lineup is going to be a bit of a mystery for a while longer, but we’re keeping our eyes on Michkov regardless of what his status is for tonight’s game. That is, however it works out, there’s something to take from it. If Michkov is right back out there after one game in the press box, it will be interesting to see what his energy level looks like, and his attention to detail. He was up there to take in some finer points of the game as much as he was to manage his load and give him a bit of a breather, but the hope is that he can have a positive impact when he does get back out there. But if his scratching stretches into at least one more game, that tells us something too about where Tortorella sees his game as being at, and how much he values continuity after a win versus the potential to add even more offensive pop into the lineup. It’s an interesting inflection point that we’re hitting here already, that’s for certain.
Ivan Fedotov
With no news yet on the statuses of Sam Ersson and Aleksei Kolosov — other than the fact that Ersson briefly skated at Friday’s practice, while Kolosov did not — the safe bet is that Fedotov will be leaned on again tonight to get the start. His struggles to start the season have been well documented, but he’ll be coming into this game with some real momentum, after picking up his first win in Tampa and looking the strongest he has all season. The question, of course, will be whether he’s able to continue to build on that good showing, or if he slides back into some bad habits and doesn’t get the same bit of luck he did in his last start. This will be a big challenge Fedotov, holding up to that high powered Panthers offense, and it will be interesting to see how well he fares.
Owen Tippett
Speaking of looking to build on some momentum, Tippett has had himself a very solid week — beginning with a two-point outing against the Hurricanes on Tuesday, which broke a five game scoring drought, Tippett chipped in another goal to his total (as well as one in the shootout) on Thursday in Tampa. It’s been a bit of an up and down start to the season for him, but everything seems to be coming together for him again, of late. The team as a whole has looked like they’re making positive strides within their system, how they’re generating offense, and while the rising tide seems to be lifting a number of players, Tippett in particular has taken a marked step forward. And they’re going to need him to be able to keep that rolling into tonight’s game.
The Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Owen Tippett – Morgan Frost – Travis Konecny
Joel Farabee – Sean Couturier – Tyson Foerster
Anthony Richard – Scott Laughton – Bobby Brink
Nic Deslauriers – Noah Cates – Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim – Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler – Rasmus Ristolainen
Emil Andrae – Erik Johnson
Sam Ersson
(Ivan Fedotov)
Florida Panthers
Evan Rodrigues – Aleksander Barkov – Sam Rienhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew TKachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Nate Schmidt – Uvis Balinskis
Sergei Bobrovsky
(Spencer Knight)
