And we’re off!
It was a quick turnaround after their series clinching win over the Penguins on Wednesday, and the Flyers are right back at it again tonight for the first meeting of their next series against the Hurricanes. There’s a real rest advantage at work here for the Hurricanes, who punched their ticket to the second round in completing their sweep of the Senators all the way back last Saturday, and they’ve been resting and practicing in the meantime. At the same time, though, the Flyers have momentum coming off of that huge overtime win, and we’ll see soon which of these is the bigger difference maker.
Puck drop: 8:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: ABC/ESPN+
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- Hot takes! Get your hot takes here! [BSH]
- The Hurricanes’ power play was Not Great against the Senators, and the Flyers will be hoping to learn some things from how they were able to contain them, and take advantage, themselves. [BSH]
- And finally, we’re digging into some of the key battles which will likely define this series. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 4-2-0
Goals: Porter Martone/Travis Sanheim (2)
Assists: Rasmus Ristolainen (4)
Points: Rasmus Ristolainen (5)
Carolina Hurricanes – 4-0-0
Goals: Logan Stankoven (4)
Assists: Taylor Hall (5)
Points: Taylor Hall (7)
Projected lineups
Alex Bump — Trevor Zegras — Porter Martone
Denver Barkey — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Matvei Michkov
Luke Glendening — Sean Couturier — Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Noah Juulsen
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Andrei Svechnikov — Sebastian Aho — Seth Jarvis
Taylor Hall — Logan Stankoven — Jackson Blake
Nikolaj Ehlers — Jordan Staal — Jordan Martinook
William Carrier — Mark Jankowski — Eric Robinson
Jaccob Slavin — Jalen Chatfield
K’Andre Miller — Sean Walker
Shayne Gostisbehere — Alexander Nikishin
Frederik Andersen
(Brandon Bussi)
Storylines to watch
Keeping pace
The Flyers put in some very good work to keep the Penguins contained through their six meetings, and that wasn’t always an easy task, but the Flyers were able to pull it off nicely. That’s all well and good, but things are going to get even more difficult as the Flyers will face a very different style in the Hurricanes’ uptempo, transition and possession heavy game. The Flyers didn’t have a ton of time to prepare, but they’ll need to find a way to hit the ground running and bring an immediate high level of pace and awareness, to keep up with the Canes and avoid giving them any chances for free off of mistakes. They were able to do that quite well in their last meeting of the regular season, but this is a much more loaded squad that they’ll be seeing this time around, and they’ll need to be ready.
Tippett’s status questionable
What’s going to make their lives more difficult as they face these efforts to keep up with the Hurricanes is the fact that they’re likely going to be without their fastest skater and most efficient rush generator in Owen Tippett, as his status for this evening is questionable. It’s been clear that Tippett’s been playing through something, as he’s been taking more and more maintenance days, and his effectiveness did dip in the later part of the last series, and it seems that everything has come to a head for him enough to keep him out of the lineup tonight.
So, the rest of the team will have to work collectively to replace his impacts, and hope that a bit of extra time off can help him get right for later in the series when these games get even more important.
Can Vladar keep rolling?
Wednesday’s game was, no doubt, a huge one for Dan Vladar. Posting his second shutout of the series on the way to securing the series win for his team, he was lights out in that start. He’s been overwhelmingly very sound throughout the whole of that series, but the Hurricanes will be throwing a whole lot more at him in this one, and he’ll need to keep up with his top form if the Flyers want to survive in this series. He seems to be managing well with whatever injury situation he was dealing with earlier in the last series, and the hope will be that this remains the case going forward. This is a big task ahead of him, and we’ll see how he handles it.
