And just like that, the final week before the break has arrived. It’s certainly been an exciting lead-up to it (for better or worse), but the Flyers will be hoping against all hope that they can get the ball rolling here and find a way to hit the break on a bit of a high. And there’s no better chance to get that started than with a matchup against another divisional rival, as the Capitals come to town.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 93.3 WMMR
Pregame reading
- Do you feel like the Olympic break simply cannot come soon enough? There are some Flyers who may be feeling the same way. [BSH]
- On the other side of that, the trade deadline looms, but we probably shouldn’t expect it to be a hugely active one for the Flyers. [BSH]
- And finally, all of this weekend’s drama with Rick Tocchet and Matvei Michkov has breached containment. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 24-20-10 (6th in Metro)
Goals: Travis Konecny (22)
Assists: Travis Konecny (30)
Points: Travis Konecny (52)
Washington Capitals – 28-22-7 (4th in Metro)
Goals: Alex Ovechkin/Tom Wilson (22)
Assists: John Carlson (35)
Points: Tom Wilson (48)
Projected lineups
Nikita Grebenkin — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Denver Barkey — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Matvei Michkov — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Nic Deslauriers — Sean Couturier — Carl Grundstrom
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drydale
Nick Seeler — Noah Juulsen
Dan Vladar
(Aleksei Kolosov)
Alex Ovechkin — Dylan Strome — Anthony Beauvillier
Aliaksei Protas — Justin Sourdif — Tom Wilson
Ethen Frank — Nic Dowd – Ryan Leonard
Brandon Duhaime — Hendrix Lapierre — Sonny Milano
Martin Fehervary — John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun — Matt Roy
Rasmus Sandin — Trevor van Riemsdyk
Gavin Bjorklund
(Clay Stevenson)
Storylines to watch
New look lines looking for jump
The Flyers are exploring all possible avenues to snap themselves out of this difficult run that they’re on, and particularly to really get their offense rolling again, and tonight will see them making some changes to the lines in hopes of sparking something. Most notably, we’ll see the trio of Denver Barkey, Trevor Zegras, and Owen Tippett will get a look tonight, and there’s a lot of exciting potential in that mix. This is a group that can bring a blend of speed, finesse, and checking tenacity if they’re able to find a way to click quickly, and it will be interesting to see what they’re able to do. What’s more, this is a continued tinkering with the lines to find the best wingers to play alongside Zegras as they work to unlock more of his game at the center position. We’ll have to see if this is the right mix after all.
Can Vladar hold up?
With Sam Ersson still a little banged up, the Flyers recalled Aleksei Kolosov again this week, but it seems like they’ll be riding Dan Vladar through these last two games before the break. And this presents an interesting situation, on the whole. On the one hand, leaning on Vladar makes the most sense as they push to string together a couple of wins — he is more experienced and Kolosov’s most recent NHL appearance didn’t really inspire confidence, nor did his start on Sunday for the Phantoms, to be frank — but on the other hand, he isn’t too far removed from his own return from injury, and one hopes that this workload won’t prove an overexertion for a player who’s hoping to get some good work in during the Olympics, and will also be a key piece for the Flyers on the other side of them.
Overcoming the noise
This weekend certainly was an exciting one, for more bad reasons than good. And without dredging more of that drama up than needs to be dredged up for a simple game discussion post, it is worth acknowledging that the Flyers are coming into this game with suddenly a whole lot more noise around their team — both locally and nationally — and it’s going to be a challenge for them to block all of that out and just focus on playing their game. But, at the same time, with all of the noise, they kind of especially need to put together at least a decent effort, or else that noise is going to just intensify in some other ways. It’s a really challenging situation that the team’s found themselves in, but they’ll need to find a way to work around it, and to finish out this stretch before the break strong.
