The Flyers have a short turnaround tonight after defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins in a Sunday matinee and then having to travel to Chicago last night. It was a really good win by the Flyers beating the Pens 4-1 with help from Martin Jones and Noah Cates. They are currently on a two games winning streak, something they haven’t done since they won March 5th and March 8th.
For the Blackhawks, their last time out they were defeated but the San Jose Sharks 4-1. They have lost four of their last five while being out scored 11-20 in those 5 games. Over the month of April the Blackhawks have a 2-8-1 record.
There are a lot of similarities between the way the two teams seasons have gone. The Blackhawks have had similar struggles to the Flyers this year with a 26-42-11 record, good for 63 points. The Flyers rank 27th in goals for while the Hawks rank 29th. In goals against the Flyers rank 27th while Chicago ranks 26th. The only previous matchup between these two teams was a 4-3 Flyers win.
Flyers Projected Lineup
Scott Laughton-Kevin Hayes -Travis Konecny
James van Riemsdyk–Joel Farabee–Bobby Brink
Noah Cates-Morgan Frost-Owen Tippett
Oskar Lindblom-Nate Thompson–Zack MacEwen
Linus Högberg-Travis Sanheim
Felix Sandström
( Martin Jones)
Blackhawks Projected Lineup
Alex DeBrincat-Dylan Strome-Patrick Kane
Dominik Kubalik-Jonathan Toews-Tyler Johnson
Phillipp Kurashev-Sam Lafferty-Taylor Raddysh
Henrik Borgstrom-Reese Johnson-Boris Katchouk
Alex Vlasic-Seth Jones
Jake McCabe-Alec Regula
Riley Stillman-Erik Gustafsson
Kevin Lankinen
(Collin Delia)
What to Watch for
Whenever you talk about the Blackhawks you have to mention Patrick Kane. The 33 year old has 26 goals and 65 assist for 91 points in 75 games this season. In his career he has 1,179 points in 1,104 games and specifically against the Flyers he is a point-per-game player with 18 points in 18 games. When all is said and done he will go down as one of, if not the best, American born player of all time.
Alex DeBrincat has become a goal scoring machine in his first few years in the NHL. So far in 365 career games he has scored 159 goals and he leads the team in scoring this season with 40 goals in 79 games. This is his second season reaching 40 goals and most likely would have done it last season had the NHL played a full 82 game season (32 goals in 52 games). He has a dangerous wrist shot and is always a threat on power play.
As has been the case the last few weeks when talking about the Flyers the only thing to watch for is the young talent. Noah Cates is the hottest Flyer at the moment with seven points in his last five games. However he is not the only young player stepping up. Ronnie Attard has not looked out of place since joining the Flyers. He leads the Flyers with a +8 in his last five games and last time out against the Penguins registered 20:05 of TOI. In the final three games of the season we will continue to watch how these two along with the many others develop.