It’s almost break time, folks! The Flyers are closing out their slate of action before the holidays with a quick trip out to Chicago to face off against the Blackhawks. They’re coming off of a huge win over the Canucks last night in their final home game of the year, but the next challenge is still ahead of them: keeping that momentum rolling.
Puck drop: 9:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: TNT
📻: 93.3 WMMR
Pregame reading
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 18-10-7 (2nd in Metro)
Goals: Trevor Zegras (15)
Assists: Travis Konecny/Trevor Zegras (21)
Points: Trevor Zegras (36)
Chicago Blackhawks – 13-16-5 (8th in Central)
Goals: Connor Bedard (19)
Assists: Connor Bedard (25)
Points: Connor Bedard (44)
Projected lineups
Trevor Zegras — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Denver Barkey — Sean Couturier — Owen Tippett
Matvei Michkov — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Carl Grundstrom — Rodrigo Abols — Nikita Grebenkin
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Rasmus Ristolainen
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Tyler Bertuzzi – Andre Greene – Andre Burakovsky
Oliver Moore – Ryan Donato – Nick Lardis
Nick Foligno – Jason Dickinson – Ilya Mikheyev
Colton Dach – Dominic Toninato – Sam Lafferty
Alex Vlasic – Louis Crevier
Matt Grzelcyk – Artem Levshunov
Wyatt Kaiser – Connor Murphy
Spencer Knight
(Arvid Söderblom)
Storylines to watch
Can the fourth line keep scoring?
Much has been made through these first few months of the season about the overall lack of offensive production from the Flyers’ fourth line, it became a problem to complete that it was impossible to ignore, but the Flyers might just have found their answer to the question of the right mix on that line. The newly arranged trio of Carl Grundstrom, Rodrigo Abols, and Nikita Grebenkin showed some real pop in last night’s game, playing hard but still allowing their skill games to come into play, and for that balanced effort, they were rewarded with two of the team’s goals on the night. Now, this isn’t a pace of output that we’re expecting them to sustain, but it’s been a huge boost for the team to see that they have a group at the bottom of the lineup that is at least capable of producing on most nights. There was some pretty immediate positive chemistry building among this group, and it will be interesting to see how they’re able to build on that, in this second half of the back-to-back.
Zegras still rolling
There was a lot to like on the offensive side for the Flyers last night, with five goals scored and a heap of good chances created, and in all of that, Trevor Zegras picked up another assist, his 21st of the season, and extended his points streak to eight games. He’s been excellent for the Flyers since his arrival, and while the pops of skill sure are eye-catching, the consistency he’s been able to tap into has been even more valuable. He’s on his longest streak of the season by a pretty comfortable margin, and has already blown past his total in goals and points from last season (in well less than the 57 games he played last year), on pace to surpass his totals from the most productive season in his career. He’s already hit a whole new level with his game, and it’s been exciting tuning in to see just what he does next.
Finishing strong
The Flyers are staring down their brief — but surely still much needed — holiday break on the other side of this game, but it will be important for them to avoid looking too far ahead to that break when they still have some business to take care of. And this game isn’t going to be easy for them — the Blackhawks certainly haven’t been able to make a huge step forward this season, and still sit in the basement of the league standings, so there’s a bit of a mismatch there in terms of the strength of these two lineups, but they do have the rest advantage, after the Flyers wrapped up their game late last night and had to travel afterwards. The Flyers have some momentum that they’re carrying with them into this matchup, but it will be on them not to get complacent and keep it rolling into this one.