The Game: 3:00 p.m. EST on ABC
It’s a Philadelphia Flyers home game, which means it’s also a New York Rangers home game. The Flyers defeated the Chicago Blackhawks pretty handily on Wednesday, and it’s a good thing they did: this Rangers game is the first of a back-to-back that sees the Flyers immediately head to Pittsburgh for another afternoon game.
The Rangers are first in the Metropolitan Division, and are coming off a dominant win over the New Jersey Devils (thanks for that one, Rangers). New York’s doing all this without the typically exceptional play of Igor Shesterkin, who’s looked quite human this year .907 save percentage and 2.74 GAA. He’s looked better lately, and the Rangers offense has been humming along to keep the team afloat, with Artemi Panarin having an excellent season, in particular. Unfortunately, Blake Wheeler’s been sidelined with injury for the remainder of the season, and Jimmy Vesey’s been promoted to a top-six role as a result.
Of course, Flyers enemy number one is Mika Zibanejad–not because he’s a dirty player or anything, but he’s got a history of dunking on the Flyers. In 42 games played against the Flyers, Zibanejad has 18 goals and 35 points; that’s not quite the David Pastrnak feat of 0.9 goals per game, but it’s still formidable. Beyond Zibanejad and Panarin, the Flyers will have to keep their heads up to avoid Jacob Trouba, who has a knack for throwing borderline hits–maybe we’ll be treated to a scrap between him and newly minted top-nine hellraiser Garnet Hathaway.
Players to Watch
Tyson Foerster
It looks like Foerster is set to return from injury this weekend: he’s been practicing without a non-contact jersey. Before going down, it looked like Foerster was starting to string together a few solid games, including the only two goals in a 6-2 loss to the Boston Bruins. It’s a long season for a rookie, and one has to imagine fatigue was setting in to some degree, but hopefully a couple weeks “off” have got Foerster feeling fresh and ready to finish the season strong.
Joel Farabee
While the play’s still solid, the offense isn’t: the Beez hasn’t had a goal in ten games. It’d be really nice if he got one today. Just one. One little goal. Please, Beez.
Mika Zibanejad
DJ Mika has a vendetta against the Philadelphia Flyers, for some reason. Zibanejad’s on hat trick watch every time he plays the Flyers, so keep an eye out for him to make a ridiculous play that’ll haunt the Flyers for the rest of the season.
Projected Lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Joel Farabee – Morgan Frost – Tyson Foerster
Owen Tippett – Sean Couturier – Cam Atkinson
Noah Cates – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
Nic Deslauriers – Scott Laughton –
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler – Sean Walker
Jamie Drysdale – Egor Zamula
Sam Ersson
(Cal Petersen)
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Jimmy Vesey
Artemi Panarin – Vincent Trochek – Alexis Lafreniere
Will Cuylle – Jonny Brodzinski – Kaapo Kakko
Adam Edstrom – Barclay Goodrow – Matthew Rempe
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Jacob Trouba
Erik Gustafsson – Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
(Jonathan Quick)
Gameday Tunes
I mean, duh.
Stats via Hockey Reference
