|
Flyers Gameday: 10/12/15 vs. FLA |
|
|
|
|
|
UPDATE: 10:30 AM ET
Flyers goaltender Steve Mason is not with the team today for what the club describes as "family/personal" reasons. The team will make an emergency recall of Jason LaBarbera from the Phantoms before game time. Additionally, R.J. Umberger (who took a "maintenance day" on Sunday) did not participate in the morning skate and is now listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained in Saturday's game. Lineup projections are updated below.
***************
PREVIEW: FLYERS VS. PANTHERS
Playing their home opener and looking for a measure of redemption, Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (0-1-1) host Gerard Gallant's Florida Panthers (1-0-0). Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised locally on CSN Philadelphia.
On Saturday night, the Panthers overwhelmed the Flyers with a four-goal assault in the first 6:46 of the game. Florida went on to crush Philadelphia by a 7-1 count.
Monday's game is the penultimate game of the season series between the two clubs, and the Panthers' lone visit to Philadelphia this season. The season series will conclude with a game in Sunrise on Sat. March 12.
After this game, the Flyers return to play on Wednesday night, honoring the recently retired Kimmo Timonen before they take on the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks. The Panthers are right back in action on Tuesday, visiting the Carolina Hurricanes.
Flyers outlook
In Thursday's regular season opener in Tampa Bay, the Flyers played a strong opening-night road game against the defending Eastern Conference champion Lightning but settled for one point in a 3-2 overtime loss.
Two nights after bringing something close to their "A" game to Tampa, the Flyers did virtually nothing right in a match against the Panthers that was every bit as lopsided as the 7-1 score suggests. Afterwards, the players held a closed-door meeting.
Steve Mason had the worst game of his Flyers' career, and took full public accountability after the game for burying the team in a cavernous hole before they knew what hit them. All four goals that Mason surrendered on eight shots over his 6:46 in net were initial flubs or stoppable shots he'd like to have back. Michal Neuvirth went the rest of the way in net, stopping 19 of 22 shots in his Flyers debut.
Now it will be up to Mason to climb right back on the horse. He had tremendous stats on home ice last season (and throughout his Flyers career) and, until Saturday's debacle, had usually enjoyed good success against the Panthers in his career.
Mason was hardly alone in playing poorly in Florida. The team as a whole did very little right: undisciplined play both in terms of decisions with the puck and taking bad penalties, mediocre penalty killing, inability to string back-to-back good shifts together and far too many icings.
Offensively, the Flyers have generated only three goals over their first two games, two of which have come on the power play. While much has said about the team's secondary scoring concerns, the club also needs for its best players -- Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek -- to be just that. While a threat on the power play, the top line catalysts need to produce more at even strength.
Dating back to last season through the first two games of the new campaign, Voracek has just five goals and 19 points in his last 34 games. Only one goal has come at five-on-five. Giroux has nine goals and 23 points over his last 36 games. Four have been even-strength goals.
That is unacceptable output for two players considered to be among the NHL's elite offensive players. The oft-cited excuse that the team does not have defensemen who are adept at getting the puck to the forwards does not hold water. Half of the defense -- Mark Streit, Michael Del Zotto and newcomer Evgeny Medvedev -- are above-average breakout passers. The others are generally competent at making at least an adequate first pass in short-to-medium range.
At the team's Sunday practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ, Flyers coach Dave Hakstol changed some of the lines. It was partially due to necessity because R.J. Umberger took a reported maintenance day. Even if Umberger is able to play on Monday, there may be a couple lineup tweaks.
A healthy scratch the first two games, Sam Gagner skated on Sean Couturier's line at Sunday's practice. Wayne Simmonds, who was benched for the final half of the third period in Sunrise after taking an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that put the team down on a 5-on-3 manpower disadvantage, skated in Umberger's place on Scott Laughton's line.
Hakstol also seemed to be considering a change on the blueline. Radko Gudas, a healthy scratch in the first two games, split reps with Brandon Manning on Del Zotto's pairing at Sunday's practice.
Philly's lone goal of Saturday's game was a second period power play marker on a point shot by Streit that may have been partially deflected off the stick of Florida penalty killer Dave Bolland. Giroux and Simmonds received the assists.
Panthers outlook
Known as a team that primarily plays low-scoring games and relies heavily on structure, discipline and goaltending while waiting for its young forwards to blossom, the Panthers showed on Saturday that they have some players who can put the puck in the net, too.
During the first period carnage, Vincent Trocheck scored the first goal for Florida and assisted on two of the next three. He finished the game with a four-point night (one goal, three assists). Nick Bjugstad's power play goal, through an inadvertent partial screen by Flyers' defenseman Nick Schultz on a shot-block attempt, was the first of two goals Bjugstad scored in the game. Reilly Smith scored the third goal, spinning out to his forehand along the goal line and finding plenty of room between the pads. Jussi Jokinen was the goal-scoring beneficiary of Mason's turnover that went directly to Trocheck.
In the opening minute of both the second and third periods, living legend Jaromir Jagr burned his former team for goals that extended the Florida lead. He made it 5-0 just 33 seconds into the middle frame with a sniper's goal from the middle slot. At the 41-second mark of the third period, Jagr cashed in a sharp-angle rebound off Neuvirth's shoulder that was left out of the goalie's reach. Finally, Smith notched his second goal of the night on a power play shot that deflected off Flyers' penalty killer Chris VandeVelde and significantly changed direction on Neuvirth.
To their credit, Florida did not let up on the Flyers after jumping out to the big early lead. Although outshot for the night, the Panthers defended well and remained opportunistic offensively. When there were a few scoring opportunities, Roberto Luongo had the answers.
Luongo stopped 38 of 39 Flyers' shots. He stopped a few flurries along the way, including a spectacular series of saves on a sequence started by Giroux feeding an open Scott Laughton. However, for most of the night, Luongo saw the shots and a large percentage were perimeter offerings.
Florida went 3-for-7 on the power play. The Flyers went 1-for-3.
Gallant's team does not need to make any changes heading into the back end of the home-and-home set. The Cats came ready to play. The Flyers did not, as they dug a deeper and deeper hole at the start of all three periods. The onus to adjust is on Philadelphia.
Projected lineups (Subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
12 Michael Raffl - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
10 Brayden Schenn - 14 Sean Couturier - 89 Sam Gagner
24 Matt Read - 21 Scott Laughton - 17 Wayne Simmonds
76 Chris VandeVelde - 78 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 25 Ryan White
55 Nick Schultz - 32 Mark Streit
15 Michael Del Zotto - 23 Brandon Manning
82 Evgeny Medvedev - 3 Radko Gudas
30 Michal Neuvirth
[45 Jason LaBarbera]
Scratches: Steve Mason (family/personal issue), R.J. Umberger (upper body, day-to-day), Vincent Lecavalier (healthy), Luke Schenn (healthy).
PANTHERS
11 Jonathan Huberdeau - 16 Aleksander Barkov - 68 Jaromir Jagr
73 Brandon Pirri - 27 Nick Bjugstad - 18 Reilly Smith
36 Jussi Jokinen - 63 Dave Bolland - 21 Vincent Trocheck
22 Shawn Thornton - 17 Derek MacKenzie - 42 Quinton Howden
51 Brian Campbell - 5 Aaron Ekblad
33 Willie Mitchell - 44 Erik Gudbranson
7 Dmitry Kulikov - 6 Alex Petrovic
1 Roberto Luongo
[35 Al Montoya]
Scratches: Connor Brickley (healthy), Steven Kampfer (healthy), Dylan Olsen (healthy), Marc Savard (IR, post-concussion syndrome).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»