The Flyers are back in action tonight, settling in to their home stand in progress, and looking to rebound in a big way after their tough loss to the Penguins on Monday night. It won’t be an easy task for them, as a reasonably productive Sabres team will be coming to town looking to extend their winning streak to three games, but we’ll see how they do in their next test of their often-touted resilience.
Puck drop: 7:30 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
📺: TNT
📻: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- In the wake of Tyson Foerster’s injury, the Flyers made a call-up to their roster, bringing Carl Grundstrom back up to join the team. He won’t be getting into the lineup tonight, but he’s going to be an option for them over this next little while. [BSH]
- They’ve also made some tweaks to the lineup in his absence (but more on those later). [BSH]
- The word on the street is that the Flyers might be looking to make a trade to grab a veteran from the Canucks for a bit more support, but who might that be? We look at some options herein. [BSH]
Pregame watching
By the numbers
Philadelphia Flyers – 14-8-3 (5th in Metro)
Goals: Tyson Foerster (10)
Assists: Trevor Zegras (16)
Points: Trevor Zegras (25)
Buffalo Sabres – 12-11-3 (6th in Atlantic)
Goals: Tage Thompson (12)
Assists: Rasmus Dahlin (16)
Points: Alex Tuch (23)
Projected lineups
Trevor Zegras – Christian Dvorak – Travis Konecny
Matvei Michkov – Sean Couturier – Owen Tippett
Nikita Grebenkin – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Nic Deslauriers – Rodrigo Abols – Garnet Hathaway
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae – Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler – Egor Zamula
Sam Ersson
(Dan Vladar)
Zach Benson – Josh Norris – Tage Thompson
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Josh Doan – Noah Ostlund – Alex Tuch
Jordan Greenway – Peyton Krebs – Beck Malenstyn
Mattias Samuelsson – Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram – Connor Timmins
Owen Power – Jacob Bryson
Alex Lyon
(Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen)
Storylines to watch
Emotional rebound
Monday’s loss to the Penguins was, no doubt, a tough one. There is the surface level sting of losing in such a way to a divisional rival with whom there is all that history, but there’s also the deeper level of concern which rippled out in that game after seeing Tyson Foerster go down with that injury which looked so flukey but at once seemed immediately serious. It would be hard not to be rattled by something like that, and the effects were certainly felt in that one, but now they have to turn the page and work to get things moving in the right direction again. They’ve been showing their resilience all season, and this is another test of it here.
Grebenkin’s promotion
The Flyers will be hard pressed to find a complete replacement for Foerster, with how hot he’s been of late, but the Flyers will begin their audition process to fill that role tonight, giving Grebenkin the first run at it. It feels a deserved promotion — despite the fact that he’s cooled off some from his impact level during the preseason, Grebenkin has still been generally playing well recently. And what’s more, the Flyers still need to get a better sense of just what they have in him as a player, and the chance to give him some more meaningful minutes to work with is the perfect window of opportunity to push forward that evaluation process. This is a great opportunity, but holding on to this role is going to be another thing entirely, he hasn’t locked himself into that role, and it will be up to him to make a positive impression and put in the work to maintain that spot in the lineup. He’ll surely get a reasonable runway to do that, but it will be interesting to see what he does tonight, right out of the gates.
New look lines
The spectral presence of Tyson Foerster is looming large over this pregame report, and our last bit that we’ll cover here is how the Flyers will be arranging their lineup in his absence. Though they did call up Grundrstrom yesterday, at least for this one, they’ve opted to slide Deslauriers back into the lineup on the fourth line, while Grebenkin moves up to the third line. They’ve also shuffled the right side of their forward lineup a bit, with Konecny moving up to the top line, Tippett moving down to the second with Couturier, and Brink filling in the third line with Cates and Grebenkin. There’s some potential here, but it’s all a bit of a big question mark at the moment. We’ll see how these new lines fare, but it could well be a bit of a longer process for the Flyers to find the right mix without Foerster in the lineup.