The Game: 7:00 PM ET, NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic
With a win, the Flyers have a chance to finish .500 on this six-game road trip. It could be high praise given how badly these trips have gone in the past. But it won’t be easy. The Toronto Maple Leafs under former Flyers coach Craig Berube are atop the Atlantic Division despite stumbling a little bit the last 10 games (6-4-0). It’s also the start of a home-and-home against Toronto as the two teams do battle at Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday night. The Flyers find themselves still on the outside looking in concerning a wildcard spot.
The Leafs played Boston at home Saturday night and it marked the return of Auston Matthews after missing six games due to injury. The only other time the two teams will face each other is March 25 at Scotiabank Centre.
Storylines to watch
Stopping pucks
The Flyers are facing one of the teams who easily lit weaker opponents up with high-powered offense. But this year the Leafs aren’t scoring as much as they use to. Prior to their Boston game Saturday night the Flyers actually had score one more goal over 39 games than the Maple Leafs. The big difference is they’ve allowed only 107, or 34 fewer than Philadelphia.
Unless the Maple Leafs go into a complete defensive shell, expect either Ivan Fedotov, Aleksei Kolosov or (if healthy) Sam Ersson to have the onus of making some big saves to keep the Flyers in it. On the other side, the Leafs have essentially had Joseph Woll and (sighs) Anthony Stolarz leading the team, the latter having a stellar .927 save percentage. Another feel good story is seeing the team use Matt Murray for a few games this season. Murray played all of three games last year for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.
A fine line
If Joel Farabee was with Bobby Brink and Noah Cates it would be the Fabrication line. But it’s not, instead Tyson Foerster is finding chemistry with Cates and Brink as all three are often in the offensive zone, working hard on the boards and winning the one-on-one battles to generate chances. Brink has points in four of his last five games, Foerster has eight in his last nine and Cates has five goals and two assists in his last eight. Although it might be a stretch, Cates was only 840 goals behind Alex Ovechkin heading into Saturday’s games as he chases down Gretzky’s all-time goals total.
The line will stick as long as its working, and credit to John Tortorella for not fixing something that isn’t broken. While most of the eyes will be on Matvei Michkov in his Toronto debut, look for this line to lead the way if they are going to make this a winnable contest.
Special teams
The special teams index is a simple stat that can be used to measure how good a team is on both sides of special teams. For example the ideal number is 2, meaning you’re tops in the league in both categories. The worst would be 64, meaning your cellar dwellers in both departments. And the New York Islanders, heading into Saturday’s games, were the proud owners of a 64: worst in penalty killing (a jaw-dropping 63.5 per cent) and worst on the power play (11 per cent). The Leafs had a special teams index of 28 (10th on the penalty kill, 18th on the power play). The Flyers’ number alone for the power play is equal to Toronto’s combined number. Philadelphia’s total stands at 48, which is better than the Islanders. But it’s also sort of like saying you’re the runner-up in an axe fight.
The best way for the Flyers to stay in this game is stay out of the box. A dwindling penalty kill is solved by taking next to no penalties. While the power play hasn’t been very effective all year, there were some signs of life on this road trip to make one think maybe they’ll be not as dreadful the rest of the way. Seeing the puck moving around a lot faster than usual and precise passing was a small but important baby step to maybe finding some success down the road. It’s a stretch, but it’s possible.
The lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Scott Laughton — Morgan Frost — Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Owen Tippett — Ryan Poehling — Travis Konecny
Joel Farabee — Sean Couturier — Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim — Cam York
Egor Zamula — Rasmus Ristolainen
Nick Seeler — Jamie Drysdale
Ivan Fedotov
(Aleksei Kolosov)
Toronto Maple Leafs
Matthew Knies — Auston Matthews — Mitch Marner
Max Pacioretty — John Tavares — William Nylander
Bobby McMann — Max Domi — Nicholas Robertson
Steven Lorentz — David Kampf — Connor Dewar
Jake McCabe — Chris Tanev
Morgan Rielly — Philippe Myers
Simon Benoit — Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Dennis Hildeby
(Joseph Woll)
