It’s their last game before the holiday, and the next stop on the Flyers’ road trip is in Sunrise, Florida, as they’re set to face off with the Panthers for the third and final time this season. They’ll be hoping to catch the Panthers — who have been finding more middling results so far this season — on one of their off nights, and bounce back from their tough showing on Monday, which saw them shut out by the Lightning. It’s another bit of up and down from the Flyers in what’s been a wild season so far, but tonight will see them hoping to catch another upswing, and do it fast.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: NBCSP
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- It’s not going to be happening tonight, but we’re really beginning to wonder if it’s time that the Flyers consider healthy scratching Garnet Hathaway. [BSH]
- Big news as it relates to the fourth line though! Nikita Grebenkin is finally going to be drawing back into the lineup tonight. [BSH]
- And finally, let’s take a pause from thinking about the Flyers to check in with what the prospects are up to. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 11-7-3 (6th in Metro)
Goals: Trevor Zegras/Tyson Foerster (7)
Assists: Trevor Zegras (14)
Points: Trevor Zegras (21)
Florida Panthers – 12-9-1 (6th in Atlantic)
Goals: Brad Marchand/Sam Reinhart (13)
Assists: Brad Marchand/Anton Lundell (12)
Points: Brad Marchand (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
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Mackie Samoskevich — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand
Jesper Boqvist — Evan Rodrigues — Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — A.J. Greer
Noah Gregor — Luke Kunin — Jack Devine
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Seth Jones
Uvis Balinskis — Jeff Petry
Sergei Bobrovsky
(Daniil Tarasov)
Storylines to watch
Grebenkin’s back at last
As we mentioned off the top, one of the more notable changes to the Flyers’ lineup for this one will be Nikita Grebenkin getting back in on that fourth line after a few games on the sidelines. The Flyers are still looking for the right mix to get something, anything out of their fourth line, and they’ll be hoping that Grebenkin’s presence can give them a little more jump. And, what’s more, it’s been hard to see Grebenkin waiting in the wings for so long when he really needs those valuable reps to help further his development. It will be at least in part up to him, though, to put together a positive showing and buy himself his next game after this, and this won’t be easy, but his game will certainly be one to watch, as he continues to put in work towards establishing himself as a regular in the Flyers’ lineup.
Giving the Andrae-Drysdale pair another run at it
And then one piece of the lineup that won’t be changing, it would seem, is that second pairing of Emil Andrae and Jamie Drysdale. And while this doesn’t come as a truly massive surprise — Rick Tocchet did say that he intended to give them a significant run of games together to see what they can do — but after seeing Andrae pretty seriously struggling on Monday against the Lightning, it feels like a distinct positive to see that the coaching staff is committed to letting him work through those issues, and they’re not going to pull the chute after one poor game. We’ll see how they’re able to bounce back in this one, against another high powered opponent.
Getting the offense back
The biggest thing for the Flyers tonight, though, will be finding a way to get their offense back on track after that difficult showing in Tampa. It’s not long ago that the Flyers were producing at a good clip — they put up a respectable three goals against the Blues and then exploded over the weekend and poured six goals on the Devils — but any momentum they were building came to a screeching halt when they were shut out by the Lightning on Monday. This has been a struggle for the Flyers all season, finding their scoring game and doing it with consistency, and while they’re certainly not going to be able to solve all of their problems in that department in tonight’s game alone, they can at least get things moving in the right direction again, so long as they can begin to wake up their game again.