Winners of four straight, the Flyers have been on a bit of a roll of late. The same can be said of their opponents, who have won five straight games and are 9-1-0 in their last ten; the New York Rangers. Their surprising surge has them in the playoff picture for the time being, just two points back of the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card spot. Suddenly this home-and-home series has strong playoff implications for not just one team, but two.
Hart Trophy candidate Artemi Panarin is riding a eleven-game point streak, and Alexandar Georgiev will once again be in goal after backstopping the Rangers to a victory over Montreal last night. It’ll be the netminder’s third start in four nights — all away games. Future Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist hasn’t started a game since February 3rd, and had even served as a healthy scratch recently.
Rookie sensation Igor Shesterkin, who had stole the starting job, will miss two to four weeks with a rib fracture after being involved in a car accident along with teammate Pavel Buchnevich last Sunday. Thankfully, neither suffered major injuries.
The Rangers made one major deadline deal, sending Brady Skjei to the Carolina Hurricanes and receiving futures in return. Many thought that Chris Kreider would also be on the move, but in actuality signed a seven year contract extension. Despite being “sellers” on Monday, the Rangers have played their way into the playoff conversation — and this is a big one for them. According to Money Puck, a win brings their playoff odds right up to a coin flip, while a regulation loss would drop them to 34%. Talk about a massive swing.
In their first and only meeting so far this season, the Flyers walked away with a 5-1 victory. Travis Sanheim scored twice, and Carter Hart made 34 saves.
Players to watch
Sean Couturier
The Rangers are a top-heavy team, and their best players are supremely talented. Panarin, as we said, is having a Hart-worthy season, and Mika Zibanejad has 30 goals in 50 games this season. Couturier will see a lot of at least one of them tonight, both if head coach Alain Vigneault chooses not to hard-match lines. Either way, he’s going to have to do some heavy lifting in this game, not that such a situation is unusual for the mid-season Selke front-runner.
The bottom-six forwards
Is this cheating? Possibly. In the first game after the trade deadline, the team’s top-six forwards took care of business against the Sharks, but the bottom two lines had some struggles. Newcomers Derek Grant and Nate Thompson didn’t have great debuts, which isn’t exactly unusual given that both players are still acclimating themselves to a new team and system. But the third and fourth lines had been playing well prior to the deadline, and a match with the Rangers, whose forward depth is a real weakness, should give them a good opportunity to bounce back.
Two big questions
Can the penalty kill hold strong?
The Rangers’ power play has been a real bright spot for the team this year, sitting sixth in the league in success percent, and top-seven in all relevant statistics — shot, goal and expected goal generation. The Flyers’ penalty has been just as strong, if not better. So unless the Flyers manage to stay out of the box completely, two top special teams units will clash tonight. Can the Flyers get the better of the match-up?
Related
The Flyers have an elite penalty kill and it’s only getting better
Will the Flyers’ third period dominance continue?
We know this team has had their struggles in the first period of games, but they have been fantastic in the final frame. And it’s not even being driven by multiple comebacks, they’ve legitimately carried play while leading — something teams struggle with doing. The penalty kill’s improvement may still be the single most important change from last season, but no longer falling into a defensive shell that consists of blocking shots for the final ten minutes of a game is right at the top of that list.
Related
The Flyers have held strong when protecting a third-period lead
Flyers projected lineup
Forwards
Giroux — Couturier — Voracek
Laughton — Hayes — Konecny
JVR — Grant — Pitlick
Raffl — Thompson — Aube-Kubel
Defensemen
Provorov — Niskanen
Sanheim — Myers
Hagg — Braun
Goalie
Hart
(Elliott)
This time the Rangers are coming into The Farg hot, having won 8 of their last ten games and inserting themselves into the already extremely crowded Metro wild card race. So, how should we expect the Flyers to fare here? Tom Urtz of Blueshirt Banter gets us up to speed with the New York Rangers of late.
