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Flyers Gameday: 3/7/18 vs. PIT |
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GAME 67 PREVIEW: FLYERS VS PENGUINS
Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (34-21-11) host Mike Sullivan's Pittsburgh Penguins (38-25-4) at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday. Game time is 8:00 p.m. ET. The game will be nationally televised on NBC Sports Network as its Wednesday Night Rivalry broadcast.
This is the third of four meetings this season between the teams, and the second and final one in Philadelphia. The season series will conclude on March 25 at PPG Paints Arena. The Flyers are 0-1-1 to date in the season series against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.
On Nov. 27 in Pittsburgh, the Flyers settled for one point from a very frustrating 5-4 overtime loss that was somewhat similar to this past Saturday's 7-6 shootout loss in Tampa Bay. The Flyers took a two-goal lead into the third period only to see it rapidly disappear. Philly scored a key late-regulation goal (in this case, a go-ahead goal by Michael Raffl on a great individual effort) but still couldn't find a way to come away with a win.
On Jan. 2 in Philadelphia, the Penguins dealt the Flyers a 5-1 beating. A four-goal explosion by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the latter half of the second period, including three unanswered goals in the span of 2:17, turned an eminently winnable hockey game for the Flyers into an insurmountable mountain to climb. There was scant push-back thereafter as the Penguins went on to turn the game into a blowout after Philly had actually controlled most of the first 30 minutes of play.
Wednesday's game will have huge implications in the Metro Division standings. If the Flyers win in regulation, they will move one point past the Penguins into second place in the division. Philly would tie the idle Washington Capitals with 81 points, although the Caps would retain first place tiebreaker. A Flyers overtime or shootout win would create a three-team tie at 81 points apiece but the standings would remain as is (Capitals first, Penguins second, Flyers third) due to the NHL's tiebreaking procedures.
A Penguins win by any means would put Pittsburgh in first place, one point ahead of the Capitals (but with Washington holding two games in hand), and would increase Pittsburgh's lead over Philly to either two or three points.
A Flyers regulation loss would make Philly winless in four in a row. With a continued slate of very tough opponents, the Flyers would have to start worrying more about dropping back down to wildcard position if the slide continues. Both the New Jersey Devils (trailing the Flyers by three points and a 32-30 ROW tiebreaker disadvantage) and Columbus Blue Jackets (six points back plus a 32-28 ROW disadvantage) won on Wednesday. The Florida Panthers (eight points behind but with three games in hand come Thursday, with a 32-30 ROW disadvantage) settled for one point against Tampa on Wednesday.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
Wednesday's game marks the start of another 3-in-4 (home-road-home) and 4-in-6 gauntlet of games for Philadelphia. After this game, the Flyers are on the road to play the Boston Bruins on Thursday and then back home to play the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday before the Vegas Golden Knights come to Philly on Monday.
The Flyers have been a much improved road team this season (18-11-5). That is usually a sign of a team trending the right way toward contender status. Oddly, though, after posting seasons of 53, 54 and 55 points at home the three previous seasons (despite dreadful-to-mediocre road records), the Flyers have been just OK at home this campaign to date. Philly brings a 16-10-6 home mark into this game. A season ago, the Flyers posted a very solid 25-11-5 record at home but an awful 14-22-5 on the road.
After taking care of business to the tune of 10-1-2 in a favorable February schedule, the Flyers are off to a winless start (0-2-1) through the first three games of a very difficult March slate that is not going to get any easier for awhile. The Flyers bookended a pair of very poor efforts at home against the Carolina Hurricanes and on the road against the Florida Panthers -- both 4-1 in which Philadelphia was considerably outplayed -- around an exciting but sloppily played goal-fest in the 7-6 shootout loss in Tampa Bay.
The Flyers expect to have Wayne Simmonds back in the lineup for this game. He will skate on a reunited line with Valtteri Filppula and Jordan Weal. They were an effective trio down the stretch last season, albeit with the Flyers out of the playoff chase, and were also together at the start of the 2017-18 with less success.
Andrew MacDonald, who missed Sunday's game in Sunrise with an upper-body injury, practiced on Tuesday and is expected to play against Pittsburgh. Recent acquisition Johnny Oduya, who would likely have been a healthy scratch on Wednesday with MacDonald's return, sustained an apparent lower-body injury in the second period of Sunday's game and only skated one brief shift in the third. The Flyers expect to have an update on Oduya's status on Wednesday.
The Flyers have plenty of room for improvement -- and will need it -- from their performances dating back even to to some of their late February games when they were in the late stages of their 10-0-2 run. Most alarming is the 14 goals that Philly has yielded over the last three games. There has also been a tendency to fall behind and have to play catch-up. The team needed third-period comebacks in two of their latter February wins.
After playing very well in each of his first three starts after being acquired from the Detroit Red Wings, the notoriously streaky Petr Mrazek was average against Carolina and Florida and subpar against Tampa Bay (just as Lightning counterpart Andrei Vasilevskiy was against Philly). The play in front of him has been quite sloppy at times, and there have been multiple goals scored where he had little chance of making a save but Mrazek has also been creating his own monster at times with leaky goals and too many fat rebounds off his brand new pads. Team defense and goaltending are symbiotic; eventually, they'll either lift each other up or drag each other down. The latter has been the case for the Flyers over the past week.
Entering Wednesday's game the Flyers have scored an average 2.95 (ranked 13th in the NHL) goals per game, along with a team 2.83 GAA (13th). At 5-on-5, the Flyers have scored 122 goals (tied for 2nd) and yielded 112 (sixth-fewest in the NHL, but a big drop from the team's top 3 ranking for most of the season until the past three games).
On the power play, the Flyers clock in at 20.6 percent (45-for-218, tied for 14th) with nine shorthanded goals yielded (tied with the Buffalo Sabres and New York Islanders for the third most in the NHL). The penalty kill comes in at 75.1 percent (139-for-185, 29th overall). The Flyers have scored two shorthanded goals this season; tied with the Arizona Coyotes, Carolina and Columbus for the fewest in the league this season.
PENGUINS OUTLOOK
Pittsburgh has won seven of its last 10 games overall but recently dropped three in a row in regulation before bouncing back for overtime wins in its last two games. The Penguins bring a 13-17-3 road record into Wednesday's tilt.
For much of the first half of the season, the Penguins were under water in their overall goal differential, especially at five-on-five. When things would go off the rails, they'd often stay that way as the Penguins were on the receiving end of multiple lopsided losses (especially very early in the season). As the second half has progressed, the Penguins have looked more like the team that has won each of the last two Stanley Cups.
Among other issues, the club missed the 1-2-3 punch down the middle that had been brought by Nick Bonino (now with the Nashville Predators) supplementing superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. General manager Jim Rutherford addressed it, albeit at a hefty cost of a first-round pick and a top goaltending prospect (Filip Gustavsson) plus veteran starting defenseman Ian Cole, by acquiring Derick Brassard from Ottawa in a complicated three-team trade that also involved the Vegas Golden Knights picking up a big chunk of Brassard's salary along with fourth-line forward Ryan Reaves.
The Penguins hit a rough spell recently, however. A 6-5 regulation road loss to the surging Panthers (in a game that seemed to be headed for OT) and an 8-4 road shellacking at the hands of the Bruins was sandwiched around a 3-2 home loss to the Devils. Since then, the Penguins massively outshot the struggling Islanders but needed a third-period comeback and a successful overtime penalty kill before Crosby scored an OT winner to end the losing streak at three games.
On Monday against Calgary, the Penguins jumped out to a very quick 2-0 lead only to see the Flames push back and tie the game at 2-2 before the end of the opening stanza. A late second-period goal by Kris Letang was answered by Calgary in the final three seconds of the frame. After a scoreless third period (Calgary outshot the Pens, 12-9), the game went to OT. The Penguins were getting outshot, 2-0, until defenseman Justin Schultz scored to win the game fo Pittsburgh.
The Penguins remain without concussed starting goaltender Matt Murray. He skated on Tuesday but did not take reps in net. The Penguins duo in goal right now consists of 22-year-old Tristan Jarry (12-5-2, 2.69 GAA, .913 SV%, two shutouts) and 26-year-old Casey DeSmith (3-4-0, 2.73 GAA, .913 SV%).
Entering Wednesday game, the Penguins have averaged 3.24 goals per game (5th in the NHL) and have a team 3.00 GAA (tied for 20th overall but a major improvement from where the team was when it entered the Jan. 2 game in Philly ranked 28th). At 5-on-5, the Penguins were shockingly ranked next-to-last in the NHL both in goals for and goals against at the time of their last game against Philly. Now, Pittsburgh stands tied for 12th in 5-on-5 goals scored (129). However, with 130 opposing 5-on-5 goals allowed, the Penguins are still mired with a 30th overall ranking in that key team category.
The Penguins lived or died on their dangerous power play in the first half of the season. The bad news for opposing teams in the second half is that the power play has only gotten better since then while the volume of 5-on-5 goals by the Pens have increased dramatically. Pittsburgh enters this game ranked No. 1 in the NHL with a robust 26.4 success rate on the power play (56-for-212). The Pens have allowed only two opposing shorthanded goals this season to date; tied with the LA Kings and San Jose Sharks for the fewest in the NHL.
The Pittsburgh penalty kill clocks solid overall at 81.7 percent success (179-for-219, ranked 13th overall). The team has scored six shorthanded goals.
PROJECTED LINEUPS
FLYERS
28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 11 Travis Konecny
54 Oskar Lindblom - 19 Nolan Patrick - 93 Jakub Voracek
40 Jordan Weal - 51 Valtteri Filppula - 17 Wayne Simmonds
15 Jori Lehterä - 21 Scott Laughton - 12 Michael Raffl
9 Ivan Provorov - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
47 Andrew MacDonald - 8 Robert Hägg
23 Brandon Manning - 3 Radko Gudas
34 Petr Mrazek
[39 Alex Lyon]
Scratches: 20 Taylor Leier (healthy), 22 Dale Weise (healthy), 24 Matt Read (healthy), 29 Johnny Oduya (lower body), 37 Brian Elliott (IR, core muscle surgery), 30 Michal Neuvirth (lower body, out 4-6 weeks from Feb. 18).
PENGUINS
59 Jake Guentzel - 87 Sidney Crosby - 72 Patric Hörnqvist
62 Carl Hagelin - 71 Evgeni Malkin - 17 Bryan Rust
12 Dominik Simon - 19 Derick Brassard - 81 Phil Kessel
34 Tom Kuhnhackl - 15 Riley Sheahan - 43 Conor Sheary
8 Brian Dumolin - 58 Kris Letang
6 Jamie Oleksiak- 4 Justin Schultz
3 Olli Maataa - 2 Chad Ruhwedel
35 Tristan Jarry
[1 Casey DeSmith]
Scratches: 22 Matt Hunwick (healthy), 37 Carter Rowney (healthy), 30 Matt Murray (concussion, day-to-day), 46 Zach Aston-Reese (upper body).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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