How To Watch: 2 p.m. on NBCSports Philadelphia and 93.3 WMMR
The Flyers have won their past two games: one decisively over the Columbus Blue Jackets, and then Scott Laughton decided he had a personal vendetta against the Detroit Red Wings and scored four goals. This afternoon, they face a Minnesota team that they beat 7-5 earlier this season in a game that featured a Sean Couturier hat trick. Could we be in for more craziness? Maybe! Let’s get wild.
Up and down the lineup, the Flyers seem to be clicking: all four of their primary line combinations at forward are on the right side of expected Goals-for, with the lowest mark going to the Farabee-Couturier-Konecny line posting a still-respectable 54.81 xGF% across 10 games. That team-wide improvement has been visible for a couple weeks now, and the Flyers parlayed that into victories over two mediocre teams; the Wild, on the other hand, are leading the Western conference by points percentage with a 19-6-4 record.
The good times have slowed down for Minnesota recently, though. They’re 6-3-1 in their last 10 and dealing with a number of injuries: Joel Eriksson Ek, Jonas Brodin, Mats Zuccarello, and now Jake Middleton are all on IR with varying return timelines–they just claimed Travis Dermott off waivers to fill out their blue line, too. For the most part, they’re still rolling, as Kirill Kaprizov is having a Hart-worthy season, Matt Boldy’s at about a point-per-game, and Marco Rossi’s elevated his game to a new level. In net, Filip Gustavsson’s forced himself into the Vezina conversation with a .922 SV% and 2.24 GAA, even though it’s Connor Hellebuyck’s award to lose at this point.
None of that mattered against Edmonton on Thursday, though: the Wild got their doors blown off 7-1 at home, with Gustavsson getting the hook after two periods. This could work for or against the Flyers: they’ll either get a vulnerable team licking its wounds, or they’ll get a team rarin’ to prove that loss was an anomaly. The Flyers were able to take advantage of their opportunities against Minnesota last time they faced off, so let’s see if they can do it again.
Storylines to Watch
Tyson Foerster has shaken his sophomore slump
It was a rough start to the season for TyFo: he wasn’t scoring much and the details of his game that kept him in the lineup last year were gone. Over the past eight games, however, the details are back–even if the scoring isn’t totally there yet; Foerster’s only got two goals and four points in that time span, and but he’s posted a 68.68 xGF%. That’s pretty dang good and, much like last season, if Foerster keeps playing like this, the points should come around, too.
The defense rotation
On Thursday, Emil Andrae came out of the lineup to get Egor Zamula a game–and while Zamula didn’t show up on the score sheet, he kinda crushed it by the advanced metrics: 76.42 xGF% and 70.00 CF% in 17:39 of 5-on-5 ice time. Earlier this season, Torts showed reticence to shakeup the lineup while the team was winning but, between these two most recent wins, he swapped the defensemen. Zamula played well enough to get another game, sure, but Andrae has outplayed him on the whole and has more power play utility. Today we might be able to see how many games each player will get before Torts switches them out for each other–barring any injuries, of course.
Future Flyer Kirill Kaprizov
Only kidding, but man, wouldn’t that be fun? Kaprizov’s eligible to sign an extension this summer, and the Wild are doing everything they can to persuade him they’re serious about contending. He’s been electric this season; despite missing a couple games with an injury, he’s still top three in league-wide scoring with 18 goals and 43 points in 28 games. The Flyers are going to have their hands full whenever Kaprizov’s on the ice, and he will absolutely burn them on the power play if they’re not careful.
Projected Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Joel Farabee – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett – Morgan Frost – Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Scott Lauhgton – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae – Rasmus Ristolainen
Jamie Drysdale – Nick Seeler
Sam Ersson
(Aleksei Kolosov)
Minnesota Wild
Kirill Kaprizov – Marco Rossi – Matt Boldy
Marcus Foligno – Ryan Hartman – Marcus Johansson
Jakub Lauko – Frederick Gaudreau – Yakov Trenin
Devin Shore – Marat Khusnutdinov – Ben Jones
Declan Chisholm – Brock Faber
Jon Merrill – Jared Spurgeon
Travis Dermott – Zack Bogosian
Marc-Andre Fleury
(Filip Gustavsson)
Gameday Tunes
Admit it: we’re having fun, aren’t we folks?
Stats courtesy Natural Stat Trick
