The Flyers are continuing to plug away through their most recent run of home games, and after picking up a commanding win over the Sharks on Tuesday, the Flyers are going to hope to continue their winning ways over this visiting Golden Knights squad. It’s not going to be an easy matchup for them, but it’s another test of their resilience — that, even with a slightly depleted lineup, they can continue to find ways to hang with these top teams.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: ESPN
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- Travis Konecny is picking up steam again, and that could very well be boding well for his chances of securing a spot on Canada’s Olympic team. [BSH]
- The Flyers saw one of their prospects in Ty Murchison make his NHL debut on Tuesday, and he held up quite well in that debut, all things considered. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 16-9-3 (5th in Metro)
Goals: Trevor Zegras/Tyson Foerster (10)
Assists: Trevor Zegras/Travis Konecny (17)
Points: Trevor Zegras (27)
Golden Knights – 14-6-9 (2nd in Pacific)
Goals: Tomas Hertl (13)
Assists: Jack Eichel (26)
Points: Jack Eichel (38)
Projected lineups
Trevor Zegras – Christian Dvorak – Travis Konecny
Nikita Grebenkin – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Matvei Michkov – Sean Couturier – Owen Tippett
Nic Deslauriers – Rodrigo Abols – Garnet Hathaway
Nick Seeler – Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae – Jamie Drysdale
Ty Murchison – Noah Juulsen
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Ivan Barbashev – Jack Eichel – Braeden Bowman
Mitch Marner – Brett Howden – Mark Stone
Reilly Smith – Tomas Hertl – Pavel Dorofeyev
Cole Reinhardt – Colton Sissons – Keegan Kolesar
Brayden McNabb – Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin – Zach Whitecloud
Ben Hutton – Kaedan Korczak
Akira Schmid
(Carter Hart)
Storylines to watch
Konecny’s hot streak
While the beginning of the season didn’t see Travis Konecny looking at his absolute best, he’s quietly — or not so quietly — gotten his game back on track in a big way. With a goal and an assist in Tuesday’s win over the Sharks, Konecny extended his points streak to five games, and brought himself up to eight goals and 25 points through the first 28 games of the season, just two points shy of Trevor Zegras for the team lead. He really looks like he’s turned a corner here, but of course, the continued challenge will be, well, continuing that.
Beyond that, with the big Tyson Foerster sized hole in the lineup right now, it’s important that others in that forward group find a way to step up, and so far, Konecny’s been doing that nicely for them.
Can Murchison keep it rolling?
As we mentioned off the top, defenseman Ty Murchison made his NHL debut on Tuesday, and he made a positive impression playing on the third pair with Noah Juulsen. It was an exciting moment for a young prospect, and it feels notable that it was enough to secure him another game to continue to show what he can do with NHL minutes. And this game will be perhaps even more of a difficult one for him — beyond the mere fact of this being a better opponent that they’re facing tonight, the adrenaline that came with making that debut will have worn off, and he’ll need to find a way to keep up that level of play on his own.
Now, his baseline level of play down at the AHL level was still quite a settled one, and the Flyers will be hoping that this is what he’s able to deliver for them tonight. The runway might be a short one, with Cam York drawing nearer to returning to action, but a continued positive impression made will still count for something, even if it’s banked for sometime down the line.
Also, can the whole team keep it rolling?
After coming away from Sunday’s tough matchup with the Avalanche with a loss (even if they did play the game competitively), the Flyers put in some good work on Tuesday to correct their course, and once again prevent one loss from spiraling into a prolonged skid. It’s something they’ve been doing well on the whole over these last few weeks, but equally, they’ve been having some trouble stringing together many wins in succession as well. Through these first two months of the season, the Flyers’ longest winning streak has been three games, and that’s a mark they’ve only been able to hit once. Now, a win in tonight’s game won’t bring them to or past that mark, but it will set them in motion towards it again, and would go a long way in their continued push to figure out how to keep their positive momentum rolling once they have it.