The Game: 1:00 PM. NBCSP. 97.5 The Fanatic
We’ve made it to the other side of the holiday and much like the Flyers, we’re back like we never left. Coming off a thrilling overtime win over the Predators in Nashville on Wednesday, the Flyers are back for one quick game at home before hitting the road again and heading to St. Louis tomorrow (really getting those airline miles in). They’ll be looking to keep their pretty substantial momentum rolling, which they’ve built up over their pretty huge feeling last 10 game span, where they’ve collected six wins and points in eight of that last 10.
Looking to squash that momentum, of course, will be the Rangers who, on the flip side, have really been going through it as of late. They’ve dropped six of their last 10 games, including their last four in a row, and fingers are beginning to be pointed. The organization feels like it’s in free fall, they’re looking around for answers, and they’ve even indicated that they’re looking to trade some core pieces in order to shake up the mix. It’s dire looking times for a divisional opponent, and the Flyers will be looking to make it a little worse for them.
Storylines to watch
More bonus hockey?
We’re coming into this game with a number of hopes. Broadly, we’re hoping for a win, or at the very least, a good show, something to make rising from our Thanksgiving food hangovers early worth it. But secondary to those big hopes are just that, however this game ends up shaking out, that it’s just done in regulation.
Because the Flyers really seem to have been hating a regulation win or loss recently — each of their last three games have gone beyond regulation, and of their last 10 games, seven have taken either overtime or a shootout to settle. It’s been a truly astounding run of bonus hockey that we’ve received here.
And we’ll give them their credit, this of course means that they’re hanging around in just about all of their games, making it interesting, but it’s all also been maybe a little too interesting. Overtime is fun, but let’s see if we can take a break from it for a spell, yeah?
Let’s get physical
If there’s one thing about a Flyers-Rangers matchup, it’s that it’s going to be a physical one. For a moment there, it looked like we might be primed to get a rematch of the Nic Deslauriers vs Matt Rempe tilt from last season, when Rempe was called up from Hartford earlier this week, but that was quashed pretty quickly, just as quickly as he was sent back down (after one game).
That said, this is still a Rangers team nearing a desperation point meeting a Flyers team which has proved it can be pretty chippy this season, for a next installment of a matchup which, as we said, has tended to be a high-energy, high-physicality one. It remains to be seen whether Deslauriers will get back into the lineup in anticipation of this, or if it will fall on the other skaters to step up physically when called upon, but however that shakes out, this is bound to be an interesting one.
Can the power play get rolling?
The Flyers have found a bit of success on the power play this season — certainly more than last, for starters — but it’s been a little streaky for them. Indeed, something of a strange trend is emerging. Going back a handful of games, the Flyers had a game where they scored a power play goal, then they’d go cold for two games, then they’d get a goal, and then they’d go cold for another two games.
If the pattern holds, that means they’re due for a goal this afternoon, and their chances of getting one seem to be trending up — the return of Emil Andrae gives the first unit a much needed boost, and they seem to have been building in the right direction over these last couple of games.
The lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Joel Farabee — Sean Couturier — Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett — Morgan Frost — Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Scott Laughton — Ryan Poehling — Garnet Hathaway
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae — Rasmus Ristolainen
Nick Seeler — Helge Grans
Ivan Fedotov
(Aleksei Kolosov)
New York Rangers
Artemi Panarin — Vincent Trocheck — Alexis Lafreniere
Will Cuylle — Mika Zibanejad — Brett Berard
Adam Edstrom — Kaapo Kakko — Reilly Smith
Jimmy Vesey — Sam Carrick — Jonny Brodzinski
Ryan Lindgren — Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller — Jacob Trouba
Zac Jones — Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
(Jonathan Quick)
