And we’re off! After an abbreviated, but still somehow too long, run through the preseason, the regular season is finally set to kick off tonight for the Flyers. It’s a big matchup on deck, a playoff rematch against the Penguins, and it’s sure to be an exciting one to get us rolling.
Puck drop: 7:30 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: TNT
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- There’s no better way to prepare for the season opener than to look back at some of the very best performances in openers of the past. [BSH]
- This season is going to be a big one for Matvei Michkov, there’s no doubt about it, but we’re optimistic that he can put together a nice bounce-back year. [BSH]
- And finally, digging into the Christian Dvorak of it all, and how much he can be a part of the solution around here. [BSH]
Pregame watching
Projected lineups
Owen Tippett — Trevor Zegras — Porter Martone
Tyson Foerster — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Alex Bump — Noah Cates — Matvei Michkov
Carl Grundstrom — Sean Couturier — Noel Acciari
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Simon Benoit
Dan Vladar
(Joseph Woll)
Nick Robertson — Sidney Crosby — Rickard Rakell
Egor Chinakov — Tommy Novak — Evgeni Malkin
Ville Koivunen — Hendrix Lapierre — Filip Hallander
Connor Dewar — Blake Lizotte — Elmer Soderblom
Declan Carlile — Erik Karlsson
Trevor van Riemsdyk — Kris Letang
Samuel Girard — Kaeden Korczak
Arturs Silovs
(Sergei Murashov)
Storylines to watch
Can the power play get rolling?
Of course, there’s perhaps no bigger storyline coming into this season than the open question of whether or not this year will finally see the Flyers make some improvements on their long-languishing power play. The preseason saw them clearly working at tinkering with it, and while they were able to get some good looks in when they got more of their NHL regulars into the mix, they ultimately weren’t able to put away any of those chances. Still, it feels like they’re starting to get things moving in the right direction — it feels a little cursed to invoke the phrasing that it looks “visually better,” but that is exactly how it’s sitting right now — and if they’re able to keep up the same good work to get settled for extended zone time, establish a cycle, and keep pouring on the chances, something’s going to go for them before too long. Will tonight be the night that they get that bounce in their favor? Time will tell, but they do have a bit more runway ahead of them before the antsiness really begins to set in.
Vladar returns
While the Flyers still have some injuries lingering elsewhere in their lineup, they got a big bit of good news this week, as Dan Vladar avoided a serious injury in the preseason, and after just a few days sidelined, he’s ready to go, and set to get the start for tonight’s opener. It’s a bit of a strange position that Vladar’s finding himself in, as he really didn’t have much of a preseason to use to knock off the rust (he took his injury in the first period of his first game), so it’s a bit of a question mark just how sharp he’ll be from the jump on this one. The hope is that he can find a rhythm again quickly, and that the defense can help him out and insulate him by keeping the shot volume he faces down, but this is going to be a big test for him — the team in front of him is still working through adopting some changes to their structure, and if there are any hiccups along the way, they might well need him to bail them out.
A big rematch
The first game of the season is a big one no matter who the opponent is, to state the obvious, but this matchup is a particularly big one, as it will see the Flyers facing off against the Penguins for the first time since eliminating them from the playoffs with that thrilling overtime goal from Cam York back in April. It was a pretty heartbreaking way for the season to end for the Penguins, and even though they’re heading into this season with some pretty significant injuries already piled up (indeed, they have the longest IR list of any team in the league, at the moment), we can be sure that they’re going to come into this matchup highly motivated to hit the ground running and exact a bit of revenge. This is all something that the Flyers will need to be prepared for, and they can’t afford to get too high heading into this game (though, after the walloping they took in their preseason finale of Saturday, this shouldn’t be much of a problem). But it’s a big challenge, still, and we’ll see how they attack it.
