Well here we are. The Philadelphia Flyers are facing elimination from the playoffs and being slightly embarrassed by the Carolina Hurricanes as they get swept in their own building. While it is almost impossible to imagine the Flyers are even capable of coming back in this series, all we’re asking for is one single win that we can point at as a reason why we shouldn’t be even more disheartened by the performance in this second round.
Puck drop: 6:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: TNT/truTV/HBO Max
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- There was a whole lot of rough stuff in Game 3 and Travis Sanheim called out Taylor Hall for his “pretty dirty play” along the boards. [BSH]
- Game 3 also featured some yelling from Rick Tocchet, primarily at Trevor Zegras. But the Flyers center enjoyed it, saying it is one of Tocchet’s characteristics that he likes. [BSH]
- If anything, Game 3 provided a big test of the Flyers’ maturity and they failed. They got baited into post-whistle scrums by the grown-up Hurricanes. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 4-4-1
Goals: Porter Martone/Travis Sanheim/Jamie Drysdale/Trevor Zegras (2)
Assists: Rasmus Ristolainen (4)
Points: Rasmus Ristolainen/Trevor Zegras (5)
Carolina Hurricanes – 7-0-0
Goals: Logan Stankoven (6)
Assists: Taylor Hall/Jackson Blake (6)
Points: Taylor Hall (9)
Projected lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Alex Bump — Trevor Zegras — Porter Martone
Tyson Foerster — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Carl Grundstrom — Denver Barkey — Matvei Michkov
Luke Glendening — Sean Couturier — Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Emil Andrae
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
Flyers just need to avoid special teams at all costs
While we can hope and dream of an improvement of the power play or penalty kill, the much more realistic goal for Game 4 should just be avoiding the special teams no matter what. Don’t even think about slashing that guy. Don’t even lift the puck off the ice in clearing attempts just in case it goes over the glass. Just do everything you possibly can to not have someone sitting in that penalty box and for the Hurricanes to run rampant over you.
And don’t even embellish or try to draw anything. You don’t want to get embarrassed by yet another 5-on-4 situation that completely halts any momentum you have, to then have the hockey world point and laugh at you as you try to have some sort of formation and attempt one single shot in two minutes.
Sure, in a perfect world we see a two-goal performance from Porter Martone on the power play as he one-times a couple of pucks behind Frederik Andersen. But that’s just not realistic anymore. We could have dreamed about this a week ago, but not today.
Get to the net, please
With the 3-0 series deficit and the general storylines surrounding each Flyers loss, you would think that they are getting killed in the slot. With the narratives of the Hurricanes’ domination, it would be easy to think that they are getting more than double the high-danger chances than the Flyers — well, fortunately or unfortunately that is not the case.
Carolina has a 24-20 lead in high-danger attempts at 5-on-5 through the first three games. It’s not a massive gap between the two teams, it’s just one is actually making those chances count since they have a 3-1 advantage in goals scored from that area of the ice. To take Game 4, they need to excel in that area. On Thursday night, they actually had a 6-5 advantage in high-danger attempts at 5-on-5 and maybe the takeaway from that is they need to maybe go out guns blazing and not worry so much about limiting that number for the Hurricanes. Just try it and see what happens.
With not a whole lot to lose, just crash the net and hope you score more goals than the other guys.
How will the young guys perform in this situation?
It will be a true test of possible future success in this Game 4. You’re at home and have the risk of being swept in the playoffs. No matter what round that it is in, it’s not a good feeling. It is possibly a situation that some of these young Flyers players have never been in. Coming from esteemed junior programs that would steamroll opponents, they might have never faced being embarrassed in elimination. in their hockey lives.
Now, we get to see who has the gumption to save face with their back against the wall. It is most certainly going to still result in a playoff series loss and not playing any hockey beyond next week, but it would be truly meaningful if someone like Alex Bump or Matvei Michkov or Porter Martone or Trevor Zegras fired back to give us one little win and not give the opponent their second sweep of these playoffs. The Hurricanes would be the first ever team in NHL history to start their playoffs with two sweeps of best-of-seven series. The Flyers can’t give them that, so let’s see who can empty the tank to give us one.
