The Philadelphia Flyers are back in action just 24 hours after handing the Detroit Red Wings a big fat and powerful loss. Can they pull off something similar against a much better Dallas Stars team? The Flyers are the massive underdogs, but weirder things have happened this season.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- Oh my goodness, he’s here. The Flyers have signed top prospect Porter Martone to his entry-level contract and he’s with the team for the rest of the season. [BSH]
- Porter Martone’s arrival means a lot. But what does it mean about Tyson Foerster as he’s on his injury recovery journey? Is the team now thinking more and more about a potential return to the ice before the season is done to really make a full-powered approach for the playoff push? [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 36-24-12 (5th in Metro)
Goals: Owen Tippett (27)
Assists: Travis Konecny (37)
Points: Travis Konecny (62)
Dallas Stars – 44-18-11 (2nd in Central)
Goals: Jason Robertson/Wyatt Johnston (40)
Assists: Miro Heiskanen (51)
Points: Jason Robertson (87)
Projected lineups
Alex Bump — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Denver Barkey — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Carl Grundstrom — Noah Cates — Matvei Michkov
Sean Couturier — Luke Glendening — Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Emil Andrae
Sam Ersson
(Dan Vladar)
Michael Bunting — Wyatt Johnston — Mikko Rantanen
Jason Robertson — Matt Duchene — Mavrik Bourque
Jamie Benn — Justin Hryckowian — Colin Blackwell
Oskar Back — Arttu Hyry — Adam Erne
Esa Lindell — Miro Heiskanen
Thomas Harley — Nils Lundkvist
Lian Bichsel — Tyler Myers
Casey DeSmith
(Jake Oettinger)
Storylines to watch
Mikko Rantanen is back
Just like the Flyers, the Dallas Stars also played on Saturday but in that 6-3 win over the Penguins, they were able to welcome back winger Mikko Rantanen into the lineup. The elite Finnish winger last played on Feb. 4 and missed almost an entire two months due to injury, but he came back with a bang. A two-point performance with a goal and an assist (both on the power play) in almost 19 minutes of ice-time.
So, while it is a back-to-back and that is hard on any player, let alone someone just recovering from an injury, it wouldn’t be too much to expect Rantanen to be an absolute force in Philadelphia and try to tear apart the Flyers’ defense and penalty kill single-handedly. Just perfect timing.
The advantage that the Flyers do have
It’s not hard to look at the lineup and sus out that the Flyers do have an advantage in this game: Depth. That bottom six of the Stars is rough and filled with more role players and guys who potentially wouldn’t even be able to hang with the Flyers right now. That’s what happens when you pay your elite players so much (like teams should), but it’s also an exploitable problem.
The Flyers on the other hand, will be sending out a third line featuring Matvei Michkov and the red-hot Noah Cates, and even a fourth line who has been scoring a whole lot lately. It’s not perfect, but if the Stars are caught with a change and have to have any of their two bottom six lines up against any of the Flyers’ top nine, there could be an advantage.
Porter Martone signs! Probably not playing tonight!
We won’t have the official lineup until closer to puck drop, but Martone has signed his entry-level contract! He’s almost certainly not going to be lacing up tonight, but he could certainly be in the building to meet the guys, hang out in the press box, and just enjoy what should be a decent little game (hopefully).
