Flyers vs. Senators preview: It’s a tale of opposites tonight

The Flyers are home for the second game of this four-game homestand tonight, hosting the Ottawa Senators … who are … good?

Well, kinda. They’re sitting at 9-5-1 through their first 15 games, good for third in the Atlantic Division. They are allowing 2.29 goals per 60 minutes, which is the fifth best number in the league so far this season. Their defense and goaltending has been solid, but it’s on offense that they’ve really struggled. Their 2.16 goals per 60 minutes ranks fourth-worst in the NHL, and they’ve only scored four power play goals on the season, which is the worst number in hockey.

It’s a pretty interesting matchup tonight, then. The Flyers have been a team that’s struggled in goal so far this season, but they’ve been one of the best teams in the league at generating offense. These teams have been polar opposites so far this season, and it’ll be fun to see how that turns out on the ice.

Steve Mason will start in goal for the Flyers, since it’s his net now that Michal Neuvirth is out for weeks. The rest of the Flyers lineup will apparently stay the same as we saw on Saturday night against Minnesota as well.

Tonight’s game is on CSN Philly and 97.5 The Fanatic. Anybody who subscribes to CSN Philly on their cable or satellite package can also stream the game from anywhere using CSNPhilly.com or the NBC Sports app. Tonight’s game is also the NHL.tv free game of the night, meaning that anybody outside of the Philadelphia area can watch for free using NHL.tv. In Canada, the game is available on TSN 5.

Philadelphia lineup

Forwards

1. Brayden Schenn – Claude Giroux – Wayne Simmonds
2. Travis Konecny – Sean Couturier – Jakub Voracek
3. Michael Raffl – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Meat Read
4. Chris VandeVelde – Nick Cousins – Dale Weise

Defense

1. Michael Del Zotto – Shayne Gostisbehere
2. Ivan Provorov – Mark Streit
3. Brandon Manning – Radko Gudas

Goalies

1. Steve Mason
2. Anthony Stolarz

Scratches: Roman Lyubimov, Nick Schultz

Injured: Andrew MacDonald, Boyd Gordon, Michal Neuvirth

Senators lineup

Forwards

1. Ryan Dzingel – Kyle Turris – Bobby Ryan
2. Zack Smith – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Mark Stone
3. MIke Hoffman – Derick Brassard – Tom Pyatt
4. Matt Puempel – Chris Kelly – Chris Neil

Defense

1. Marc Methot – Erik Karlsson
2. Dion Phaneuf – Cody Ceci
3. Mark Borowiecki – Chris Wideman

Goalies

1. Craig Anderson
2. Mike Condon