The Game: 8:00 PM. NBCSP. 97.5 The Fanatic.
Fresh off one of the Flyers’ most complete efforts of the season in the Black Friday win over the Rangers, the Flyers will look to keep the good vibes going in a road trip to St. Louis in a tough back-to-back situation. After the win over the Rangers, the Flyers moved to 7-2-2 in their last 11 games, catapulting into a points-tie for the second wild card position after a rough 4-8-1 start to the season. They’ve had strong goaltending in the absence of starting goaltender Sam Ersson, cleaned up their defensive and neutral zone play, and had the bottom of the lineup show signs of life. The Flyers season thus far has been a tale of two halves – and they will look to keep the momentum Saturday night in St. Louis.
On the Blues side, it’s been quite a rough season for St. Louis – that is, until Jim Montgomery abruptly took over for Drew Bannister just one week ago, following Montgomery’s firing from the Bruins. Following a 9-12-1 start that saw the Blues near the bottom of the Western Conference, the Blues quickly pulled the trigger on Bannister in favor of the much-experienced Montgomery. Since then, the Blues are 2-0 in the first two games of the Montgomery era, winning road games against the Rangers and Devils. With a Blues win Saturday, Montgomery would be the first St. Louis to begin his Blues’ tenure with three consecutive wins. The Flyers, on the second half of a back-to-back, will look to squash that possibility against a Blues team on three-days rest.
Storylines to watch
Can Kolosov make one last push?
In the absence of Sam Ersson, goaltending coach Kim Dillabaugh deserves a ton of credit for his work in bringing Ivan Fedotov and Alexsei Kolosov up to snuff in this crucial stretch. Considering how the two young goaltenders looked in the run-up to this stretch, the Flyers season could have gone fully off the rails with Ersson out. Instead, Fedotov’s run out a .901 SV% and a 3.00 GAA in his last five games, while Kolosov has a .909 SV% and a 2.33 GAA in his last three games. That’s fully acceptable for backup goaltenders in the NHL, and the Flyers getting a chance to find out what these players can do is more important than anything else this season.
Having said all that, this might be Kolosov’s last chance to convince the Flyers to give him the reins as the backup, with Ersson’s return seemingly set for next weekend. Even though Kolosov has outplayed Fedotov a bit in this stretch, it’s very unlikely that Fedotov is the odd man out here, considering the contract situation. He would have had to blow the doors off while Fedotov continued to struggle, but Fedotov’s play evened out over this stretch. Still, never say never, and Kolosov will look to continue to impress in front of a tired Flyers squad tonight.
Will line combinations finally stick?
There was a lot to like from the Black Friday win over the Rangers, but one of the bigger takeaways has to be the lack of changing up the lines from Tortorella. For perhaps the first time all year, Tortorella stuck with combinations that seemed to be working, whether it was the top line of Farabee-Couturier-Konecny or the relentless third line of Brink-Cates-Foerster. Both lines got on the board yesterday, and for Couturier and Konecny, Couturier will look to find the back of the net for his third consecutive game while Konecny will look to earn a point for the 12th time in his last 13.
Of course, Tortorella could change everything at a whim, but it’s worth noting as Tortorella rarely goes an entire game with little changes as he did on Friday. The only problem? The second line of Tippett-Frost-Michkov wasn’t too effective, and the Flyers can’t let their talented rookie languish away on a line that doesn’t seem to work. That’s a line that’s worked before, so I imagine the Flyers give it some time, especially if all other lines are clicking. We’ll see if the lines are back in a blender on Saturday night.
Neutralizing Thomas, solving Binnington
On the Blues side, the Flyers really have two main threats to worry about – leading scorer Robert Thomas and hard-to-predict goaltender Jordan Binnington. For Binnington, after a slow start to the season, he’s posted a .953 SV% and a 1.33 GAA in his past three appearances, including Wednesday’s shutout over the Devils. Montgomery reinvigorating the Blues’ defense and structure has done wonders for Binnington thus far – and it’ll be up to the Flyers to try to solve that.
For Thomas, meanwhile, he’s one of two major offensive threats for the Blues, alongside the dynamic yet inconsistent Jordan Kyrou. Registering 10 points in 12 games following an injury earlier this season, Thomas takes down top line responsibilities between Jake Neighbours and Alexandre Texier. Honestly, this Blues team reminds me a lot of the mediocre Flyers teams of the mid-2010s. A few really good forwards (albeit, Giroux and Voracek were much better), and a bunch of good but not great players around them. Take Thomas and Kyrou out of it, and the Flyers should have a pretty good shot in this one.
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
Aleksei Kolosov
(Ivan Fedotov)
St. Louis Blues
Jake Neighbours — Robert Thomas — Alexandre Texier
Brandon Saad — Brayden Schenn — Jordan Kyrou
Dylan Holloway — Oscar Sundqvist — Zack Bolduc
Alexey Toropchenko — Radek Faksa — Mathieu Joseph
Ryan Suter — Colton Parayko
Philip Broberg — Justin Faulk
P.O Joseph — Matthew Kessel
Jordan Binnington
(Joel Hofer)
