Our beloved Philadelphia Flyers are out here playing hockey on Black Friday…but somewhere not in Philadelphia? They’re off to an island to go face the New York Islanders in this classic matchup in which we sort of dread watching. Here’s hoping for nothing too controversial to come out of this game and the Flyers put the sleepy Long Island boys to bed early.
Puck drop: 4:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 93.3 WMMR
Pregame reading
- Well, hopefully this game has better breakaway attempts than the last one. On Wednesday night, Christian Dvorak and Sean Couturier combined to maybe have the worst one we’ve ever seen. Thank goodness the Flyers won that game, though. [BSH]
- A handful of Flyers fans are resisting hard to not fall in love with Trevor Zegras. We spoke with them. (Parody.) [BSH]
- Flyers prospect report!! Porter Martone and Jett Luchanko had big weeks and the top guys are killing it. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 12-7-3 (6th in Metro)
Goals: Tyson Foerster (8)
Assists: Trevor Zegras (14)
Points: Trevor Zegras (21)
New York Islanders – 13-9-2 (4th in Metro)
Goals: Bo Horvat (14)
Assists: Bo Horvat/Mat Barzal/Kyle Palmieri/Jonathan Drouin (11)
Points: Bo Horvat (25)
Projected lineups
Matvei Michkov — Sean Couturier — Bobby Brink
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Travis Konecny
Trevor Zegras — Christian Dvorak — Owen Tippett
Nikita Grebenkin — Rodrigo Abols — Garnet Hathaway
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Egor Zamula
Sam Ersson
(Dan Vladar)
Emil Heineman — Bo Horvat — Kyle Palmieri
Anders Lee — Mat Barzal — Jonathan Drouin
Maxim Shabanov — Calum Ritchie — Simon Holmstrom
Maxim Tsyplakov — Casey Cizikas — Anthony Duclair
Matthew Schaefer — Ryan Pulock
Adam Pelech — Tony DeAngelo
Adam Boqvist — Scott Mayfield
Ilya Sorokin
(David Rittich)
Storylines to watch
Watch out for the Horvat-Heineman connection
The Islanders have been unpredictably having a very solid season so far and a lot of that offensive juice that they have has been stemming from a combination upfront that they have kept consistent throughout. Emil Heineman and Bo Horvat have been linked together in their top six for some time and have consistently put together solid results.
No matter what play-driving metric you want to throw out there, whenever a forward line has these two guys on it for the Islanders this season, they have the advantage over the opposition. While it doesn’t necessarily translate to an immediate goal advantage — when Heineman and Horvat are on the ice, the Islanders have outscored the opponent 14-12 this season — they have managed to get at least 55 percent of the shot attempt and shot on goal share. They’re just playing some solid hockey so Noah Cates might have his work cut out for him this afternoon.
Flyers’ power play back to being a dud
While it may be looking better and there was a stretch this season where it felt like the Flyers were destined to get at least one power-play goal in the game, this team has now gone through six consecutive games without putting one in the back of the net on the man advantage. Through that timespan, the Flyers have gone now 0-for-10 with their opportunities — so it’s not like they’re getting ample time out there, but it’s still disappointing to see that big goose egg once again.
For the month of November, the Flyers have scored just four power-play goals. That’s not great considering we’re just a couple days away from the calendar turning.