The final week of the regular season is upon us, and the Flyers have just two games to take care of that final bit of business and clinch a playoff spot for themselves. A win tonight against the Hurricanes would do it, and they have a prime opportunity ahead of them, as it looks like Carolina will be without some of their big guns in this final matchup of the season.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- It doesn’t look like he’s going to play tonight, but the Flyers have recalled defenseman David Jiricek from the Phantoms. [BSH]
- In other prospect related news, it looks like Jack Nesbitt is indeed NCAA bound. [BSH]
- And finally, Matvei Michkov is heating up, and he’s doing it at just the right time. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 41-27-12 (3rd in Metro)
Goals: Owen Tippett (28)
Assists: Trevor Zegras/Travis Konecny (41)
Points: Travis Konecny (68)
Carolina Hurricanes – 52-22-6 (1st in Metro)
Goals: Seth Jarvis (32)
Assists: Sebastian Aho (53)
Points: Sebastian Aho (80)
Projected lineups
Tyson Foerster — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Travis Konecny — Christian Dvorak — Porter Martone
Denver Barkey — Noah Cates — Matvei Michkov
Luke Glendening — Sean Couturier — Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Emil Andrae
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Taylor Hall — Logan Stankoven — Jackson Blake
Nikolaj Ehlers — Jesperi Kotkaniemi — Bradly Nadeau
William Carrier — Mark Jankowski — Nic Deslauriers
Eric Robinson — Skyler Brind’Amour — Jordan Martinook
K’Andre Miller — Jalen Chatfield
Alexander Nikishin — Sean Walker
Mike Reilly — Charles-Alexis Legault
Brandon Bussi
(Freddie Andersen)
Storylines to watch
If it ain’t broke…
As the Flyers head into perhaps their biggest game of the season, we won’t be seeing them making any changes to their lineup, as they’re sticking with what’s been working for them. That’s a hard thing to quibble about, considering how well just about everybody was clicking in that huge win over the Jets on Saturday, but we’ll see how we’ll they’re able to keep that ball rolling against a Hurricanes team which, while not at full strength (more on that later) can still certainly be dangerous. These are the last opportunities coming up to fine tune the lineup, to find the optimal mix, heading into the postseason, and it will be interesting to see if tonight reveals anything new.
Vladar gets the start again
Speaking of sticking with the same looks, the Flyers will be doing the same in the crease tonight. And this, too, is understandable — Vladar put in a solid performance on Saturday to help secure that win and, perhaps even more critically, to bounce back in a big way from a rough showing in his last start in Detroit — but there’s still a bit of simmering concern in the back of our mind, at least, about him running out of steam with how much they’ve been leaning on him particularly down the stretch.
Still, this is as close as could be to a must-win game for the Flyers, and he gives them the best chance to do that.
Hurricanes resting key players
We were heading into this one hoping that the Hurricanes, with their playoff spot already well locked down, might opt to rest some of their big guns and give the Flyers a bit of a break, and it looks like that might be exactly how this one is playing out. The players who, it appears, will be rested for this game are as follows:
Sebastian Aho
Seth Jarvis
Andrei Svechnikov
Shayne Gostisbehere
Jaccob Slavin
Those are some real heavy hitters that the Flyers are not going to have to deal with tonight, and while the challenge will remain in finding a way to not get complacent in facing a depleted Hurricanes team, it also remains facing a depleted Hurricanes team works in their favor. There’s a major opportunity here, if they can just seize it.
Win and they’re in
This is it, folks. The Flyers got some help yesterday with losses by the Islanders and Blue Jackets, and if they want to punch their ticket into the playoffs, all that they have to do it win tonight. Now, they’ve had some troubles in a number of these “just win, baby” types of situations throughout the season, but this moment is an especially big one, and the stars seem to be aligning for them to pull this off. Their fate rests in their own hands, it’s up to them to bear down and take care of business again.
