The Philadelphia Flyers will never be normal. We swear there is not a morning skate that goes by or an in-game lineup decision that does not make a large portion of this fan base go absolutely mental online or while sitting on their couch.
On Monday, the morning skate before the Flyers host the also-bad San Jose Sharks, head coach John Tortorella gave a slew of lineup updates that end takes a few moments to digest. And in the normal lineup update tweets from the Flyers’ official team account, they most likely almost ran out of characters.
So, thankfully, we can avoid another day of chaos as Matvei Michkov is back in the lineup after sitting as a healthy scratch for two consecutive games — the Flyers earned three of the four available points in those matchups against some of the best teams in hockey, oops — and should take his rightful place in the top six. Additionally, after being banged up and dealing with a personal issue that caused his absence, center Ryan Poehling is back in and should be a real speedy boost for this team.
And coming out of the lineup as a healthy scratch is Morgan Frost. The 25-year-old center has looked bad the last couple of weeks and as a consistent member of John Tortorella’ Doghouse, Frost will be finding himself in the press box once again. After scoring three points in his first three games of the season, Frost has scored just three more in the following 12 — that is not something you want to see from a top-six center. And that has caused his ice time to drastically decrease to a season-low 9:30 against the Florida Panthers on Saturday. He is just not trusted to be out there in any capacity, so he sits.
Sam Ersson is starting again, yadda yadda yadda. We know. But the real kicker is on the blue line. Erik Johnson is drawing back in and is replacing Jamie Drysdale, who will not play on Monday night. For a split second, we all thought that Drysdale was a healthy scratch, which would have been odd since he got top-pairing minutes on the road trip but thankfully, we can avoid that panic and it has been confirmed that the young blueliner is just “banged up” according to Tortorella.
So, what does that mean for the lines and pairs? We have zero clue and might not until practice is done. The top line of Owen Tippett, Sean Couturier, and Travis Konecny could stay together, and then it could be Poehling with Tyson Foerster and Michkov as the second line. We know Tortorella is liking the Farabee-Brink connection and Scott Laughton was centering that duo in Florida, and then maybe our favorite lad Anthony Richard can stick around as the fourth-line left wing next to Noah Cates and Garnet Hathaway.
On the blue line, we could see a return of top-pairing Rasmus Ristolainen with Travis Sanheim, Nick Seeler anchored to Egor Zamula, and then Emil Andrae and Erik Johnson together.
This is all guesswork, but it’s educated guesses at least. The important thing is that Michkov is back in the lineup so people can calm down for at least a single second.
UPDATE:
Nevermind. It’s classic Tortorella that what we assumed were going to be the lines and defensive pairs, is way off the mark. Per our pal Charlie O’Connor, this is what the lineup on Monday night is going to look like:
Owen Tippett — Sean Couturier — Travis Konecny
Joel Farabee — Scott Laughton — Bobby Brink
Anthony Richard — Ryan Poehling — Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Garnet Hathaway
Emil Andrae — Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler — Rasmus Ristolainen
Egor Zamula — Erik Johnson
This gives us plenty of questions that could be answered against the Sharks. And don’t panic, Michkov being on the “third line” certainly does not indicate anything. We will bet heavily that Michkov finishes the game with more minutes than Laughton.
But, those questions can be: Michkov with two speedy guys, how will that look? Can Emil Andrae handle the top pairing? Will Ristolainen still look good next to Seeler? Will Zamula-Johnson allow three goals or four? Maybe we’ll get some answers but this certainly makes tonight much more intriguing.
