Jakub Voracek is back. After a few weeks of sitting on the sideline with a foot/ankle injury and tweeting a whole bunch, he’s back and ready to suit up for the Flyers on Saturday afternoon when they host the Penguins in a game with critical playoff implications.
Voracek skated on a line with Nick Cousins and Matt Read at practice in Voorhees, according to our own Charlie O’Connor. That bumps Scott Laughton down to the fourth line. Chris VandeVelde skated as the scratch, which could be an indication that the Flyers expect him to get suspended when he has a hearing with the Department of Player Safety later today. Or that he was just going to be the guy to sit anyway upon Jake’s return.
The top-6 remains unchanged, with Claude Giroux centering Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds and Sean Couturier centering Michael Raffl and Sam Gagner.
On one hand, Voracek obviously makes that line way more dangerous. On the other, maybe they want to ease him back into action.
— Charlie O’Connor (@BSH_Charlie) March 18, 2016
This is a pretty formidable top-9 as currently assembled, and Pittsburgh is without Evgeni Malkin. That’ll leave Sean Couturier’s line tasked with shutting down Sidney Crosby, and the rest of the lineup may be able to have their way with a Penguins team that’s suffering from serious depth issues right now.
We’ll see how Voracek responds to his first game February 25.
