The Game: 7:00 PM ET, NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic
It’s the first game post-trade deadline for the Flyers, and things are as high stakes for them as ever — they’re still trying to find that right lineup mix, still trying to make up for some injury absences, and still trying to hold onto a playoff spot. As we speak, the Flyers are still pretty set in that third place spot in the Metro, and their regulation win over the Panthers on Thursday helped them maintain a bit of breathing room.
They’ll also be seeing some reinforcements entering the mix this evening — deadline addition Erik Johnson seems slated to make their Flyers debuts tonight.
On the Lightning side, things are in a bit less secure of a position — they’re sitting at fifth place in the Atlantic and in the final wildcard spot, just two points ahead of the Islanders (who have two games in hand). We’re getting into “every game is a must-win game” territory here, and the Flyers meeting a likely pretty desperate Lightning is going to make for a pretty tough matchup.
Players To Watch
Erik Johnson
The player set to get the most attention in this one, of course, is the brand new one. Johnson doesn’t look like he’ll be hugely eased into things, as he was paired with Marc Staal on the second pair at this morning’s skate, so that will be a bit of a challenge in front of him. But we’ll see how this goes, and if he’s able to hit the ground running and offer a bit more stability on the back end.
Sam Ersson
With another tough and important game in front of them, the Flyers are again going to Ersson for the start in this one. He’s coming into it with a good bit of momentum — he was great on Thursday in Florida, and he’s being called upon again to come up big against another high powered offense. Ersson’s done well to gain the faith of his teammates and his coaching staff, and we’ll see how he continues to go from here.
Ronnie Attard
Speaking of riding some momentum into tonight’s game, Ronnie Attard is sticking around (Adam Ginning, though, was sent back down to the Phantoms), and is back in the lineup again tonight. He made his season debut on Thursday and showed some real pop in his game, despite the difficult task that he had to work with, in defending against that Panthers offense. As we said, tonight’s game won’t be an easy one, and it will be interesting to see if Attard is able to keep the ball rolling and continue to hold up well in the face of that difficulty.
Projected Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
(per Charlie O’Connor)
Tyson Foerster – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Joel Farabee – Scott Laughton – Owen Tippett
Noah Cates – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
Nic Deslauriers – Morgan Frost – Cam Atkinson/Denis Gurianov
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Marc Staal – Erik Johnson
Ronnie Attard – Egor Zamula
Sam Ersson
(Felix Sandstrom)
Tampa Bay Lightning
(per Gabby Shirley)
Brandon Hagel – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Steven Stamkos – Anthony Cirelli – Mitchel Chaffee
Anthony Duclair – Nick Paul – Conor Sheary
Tyler Motte – Luke Glendening – Michael Eyssimont
Victor Hedman – Darren Raddysh
Nick Perbix – Erik Cernak
Calvin De Haan – Matt Dumba
Andrei Vasilevskiy
(Jonas Johansson)
