Preview: Flyers head to Long Island for weekend rematch

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We\'re back again! It\'s like we were never gone!

After yesterday afternoon\'s... tough... showing against the Islanders in their annual Black Friday matinee game, the Flyers are back again, back up on Long Island, and looking for a big of revenge against the Islanders. In case you took the holiday week off and missed anything (and truly, how could we blame you for that?), let\'s recap: on Wednesday, the Flyers made their way up to Long Island to face the Islanders for the first time this season, and we saw them fall behind early, scramble to attempt a comeback, and ultimately fall short. And then yesterday, the Flyers fell short again in their attempt to rebound well from that first loss of the week, falling into a two-goal hole within the first two minutes of the game, and never really fully regaining their bearings from there. And that falter against divisional opponents has led to them falling back into fourth place in the Metro, behind the Islanders (who have the same number of points, but have played one fewer game).

And as far as the Islanders are concerned, things aren\'t going completely smoothly for them either. Since we last saw them, they were able to pull off a 5-3 win over the Senators last night, but at a great cost -- they lost both Adam Pelech and Sebastian Aho in the first period and had to play the bulk of the game with just four defensemen. So, while the Flyers certainly shouldn\'t take them lightly, given how things went last time around, they are still getting a more beat up Islanders team tonight.

Players to Watch

Travis Konecny

Despite looking, at times, like he was really fighting things in yesterday\'s game -- pucks jumping over his stick, plays that would normally come easily for him failing to come together -- Konecny still managed to lead the team in individual shot attempts across all situations (with 10). And while it was tough to see him fighting it yesterday, the good news is that Konecny has developed nicely into a player who doesn\'t let those tough stretches extend for too long. Could he settle in and get back to old form as early as tonight? Here\'s hoping.

Sam Ersson

We\'ll preface this section with this note: we do not actually know that Ersson is for sure starting tonight, and we won\'t until warmups later this evening. John Tortorella hasn\'t been afraid to play his starter in back to back games, but with the last two starts for Carter Hart being just alright (hardly struggling, but also hardly lights out), it stands to reason that they might be more willing to rotate Ersson in for this one.

And Ersson would be coming into this one with some momentum -- the last time we saw him was last weekend against the Blue Jackets, when he was able to keep things locked down well enough while the Flyers let Columbus hang around for just a bit longer than was comfortable. That\'s not a huge layoff, but we\'re getting back into \"figure out how to make the most of not many starts\" territory with him now that Hart is healthy again, so it will be interesting to see how he does here, and going forward.

Brock Nelson

We\'ll take you all back again, for just one moment more, to that first meeting between these two teams, wherein the player who really seemed to have the Flyers\' number was Nelson. He had two goals in that game, and led the Islanders with four individual scoring chances at 5-on-5. We\'ll see tonight if he\'s able to keep the ball rolling, will still give the Flyers a lot of trouble, or if they\'ll be able to step up and contain his offensive efforts.

Projected Lineups

Philadelphia Flyers

Tyson Foerster – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny Owen Tippett – Scott Laughton – Cam Atkinson Joel Farabee – Ryan Poehling – Bobby Brink Nic Deslauriers – Noah Cates – Garnet Hathaway

Travis Sanheim – Cam York Nick Seeler – Sean Walker Egor Zamula – Marc Staal

Sam Ersson (Carter Hart)

New York Islanders

Mathew Barzal – Bo Horvat – Simon Holmstrom Pierre Engall – Brock Nelson – Kyle Palmieri Anders Lee – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Oliver Wahlstrom Hudson Fasching – Casey Cizikas – Cal Clutterbuck

Scott Mayfield – Noah Dobson Alexander Romanov – Ryan Pulock Samuel Bolduc -- Sebastian Aho?

Ilya Sorokin (Semyon Varlamov)

Gameday Tunes

I don\'t have any island or island-related puns for the gameday tunes (I\'m new to this section, forgive me) so instead I\'m bringing a little bit of sincerity -- I\'ve been really getting into the new Searows EP lately, so here\'s a sample of that. Some easy listening for what\'s hopefully still an easy, low key holiday weekend for all.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5RXjt2s4HBJw3TcaAzwSrD?si=5c0c1a58c1dc43a5

All stats via Natural Stat Trick.

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