The Philadelphia Flyers have been kicking it back and after a lengthy break, they earned two fairly solid wins against the St. Louis Blues and the New Jersey Devils last week. Now, to kick off this road trip they are down in Florida facing a fairly ravaged Tampa Bay Lightning squad.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- It has nothing at all to do with the upcoming game but Flyers prospect Jett Luchanko was traded in the OHL. Something so many fans have been asking for has finally happened: To see Luchanko on a contender and one of the best teams in junior hockey. [BSH]
- We’ll see it tonight but the early results of the defensive pairing of Jamie Drysdale and Emil Andrae have been very solid. [BSH]
- What have we seen from the first 100 games of Matvei Michkov? [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 11-6-3 (4th in Metro)
Goals: Trevor Zegras/Tyson Foerster (7)
Assists: Trevor Zegras (14)
Points: Trevor Zegras (21)
Tampa Bay Lightning – 12-7-2 (2nd in Atlantic)
Goals: Jake Guentzel (12)
Assists: Nikita Kucherov/Victor Hedman (12)
Points: Jake Guentzel/Nikita Kucherov (22)
Projected lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Matvei Michkov — Sean Couturier — Bobby Brink
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Travis Konecny
Trevor Zegras — Christian Dvorak — Owen Tippett
Nic Deslauriers — Rodrigo Abols — Garnet Hathaway
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Egor Zamula
Sam Ersson
(Dan Vladar)
Tampa Bay Lightning
Brandon Hagel — Anthony Cirelli — Nikita Kucherov
Jake Guentzel — Dominic James — Gage Goncalves
Zemgus Girgensons — Nick Paul — Yanni Gourde
Curtis Douglas — Jack Finley — Oliver Bjorkstrand
JJ Moser — Darren Raddysh
Charle-Edouard D’Astous — Emil Lilleberg
Declan Carlile — Steven Santini
Andrei Vasilevskiy
(Jonas Johansson)
Storylines to watch
Lightning dealing with major absences
The Tampa Bay Lightning are already a pretty shallow team when everyone is healthy, but now with their first-line center Brayden Point still out, the monstrous Victor Hedman on the sidelines, Erik Cernak not playing as he’s out week-to-week, and even depth player like Pontus Holmberg on injured reserve; they’re a little messed up right now.
Does this mean the Flyers can take advantage of this? Possibly. They certainly do have the depth advantage as Zegras and Foerster only have to potentially deal with Gage Goncalves and Zemgus Girgensons of all players.
Sam Ersson gets the start
After earning the shootout victory in St. Louis in relief of Vladar, Sam Ersson is in between the pipes in more of an alternating fashion. Dan Vladar got the decisive win over the Devils, and Ersson only managed to save 12 of the 17 shots he faced on Saturday against the Blues, but the results are somehow there for the lesser netminder.
While Rick Tocchet isn’t going back to simply going back and forth between his goalies, there is something to the Flyers earning seven of the eight available points in Ersson’s last four appearances.
Nikita Grebenkin on the sidelines once again
It’s become a little bit of a frustration point for Flyers fans, but rookie and fan favorite Nikita Grebenkin remains out of the lineup for the first game of this road trip. Nic Deslauriers is somehow about to play in his 11th game of the season despite earning zero points, fighting just twice, and taking 10 total shot attempts while averaging 8:28 TOI. We get it that Deslauriers does something (punch faces) but so can Grebenkin and do much, much more.
It won’t be so much of a big deal if this stops happening eventually this season, but it’s a little bit annoying right now.