|
Flyers Gameday: 10/24/16 @ MTL |
|
|
|
|
|
Preview: Flyers @ Canadiens
Playing the front end of back-to-back games and the road portion of a home-away-home stretch of three games in four nights, Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (2-2-1) are in Quebec to take on Michel Therrien's Montreal Canadiens (4-1-0) on Monday night. Game time at the Bell Centre is 7:30 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on CSN Philadelphia.
This is the first of three meetings between the clubs this season, and the first of two in Montreal. Last season, the Flyers went 2-0-1 against the Habs.
The Flyers last played on Saturday, hosting and defeating the Carolina Hurricanes, 6-3, to snap a three-game winless stretch. The Canadiens earned a 4-2 road win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.
Flyers Outlook
Jakub Voracek's best offensive game of the young season, two goals and one assist, led the way in Saturday's win over Carolina. The Flyers received two assists from Ivan Provorov on shots that teammates deflected into the net. Philly also benefited from a goal and an assist from Shayne Gostisbehere, a tally by Brandon Manning and one goal apiece from the red hot Matt Read and Wayne Simmonds.
Read has scored five goals over the last four games. Simmonds is also on a four-game goal streak. Per the Elias Sports Bureau and the Flyers' Brian Smith, the last time the Flyers had two players concurrently on goal scoring streaks of four games or more was during the 1993-94 season, when Josef Beranek had an eight-game streak from Oct. 9 to 23 and Eric Lindros had a six-game streak from Oct. 12 to 26.
Steve Mason, who made numerous tough stops among the 27 saves he made in taking third-star honors on Saturday, has started each of the last two games and has appeared (three starts, one relief appearance) in four of the first five games. With the Flyers playing back-to-back games, Hakstol is likely to split the next two starts between Mason and Neuvirth.
Radko Gudas will serve the sixth and final game of his NHL suspension. Former Habs forward Dale Weise will serve the second match of his own three-game NHL suspension. The injured Michael Del Zotto and Scott Laughton practiced on Sunday. Laughton said he is about five to seven days from being able to play while Del Zotto did not yet want to put a timetable on his return to the lineup.
Canadiens Outlook
On Saturday, third-period goals by Paul Byron and Torrey Mitchell capped off the Habs' 4-2 road win over the Bruins, as the teams evenly split four goals in the third period after Montreal took a 2-0 lead to the second intermission. Brendan Gallagher and Phillip Danault also scored for the Canadiens, while Carey Price stopped 19 of 21 shots to earn the win.
Price, the NHL's Hart Trophy and Vezina Trophy winner in 2014-15, missed most of last season with a knee injury. He is now healthy again and has won his first two starts.
The 2016-17 Canadiens' roster looks a bit different from the squad the Flyers' played last season, most notably via the blockbuster P.K. Subban for Shea Weber trade with the Nashville Predators. Other newcomers include sometimes controversial but undeniably gifted veteran Russian forward Alexander Radulov, Finnish rookie winger Artturi Lehkonen and agitating veteran forward Andrew Shaw.
Through five games, Weber is averaging one point per game (one power play goal, four assists) and is plus-eight at even strength. Holdover forwards Gallagher (three goals, two assists), Max Pacioretty (one goal, four assists) and Alex Galchenyuk (one goal, four assists) also have five points thus far. Tomas Plekanec has three assists.
Projected Lineups (subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
10 Brayden Schenn - 28 Claude Giroux - 17 Wayne Simmonds
11 Travis Konecny - 14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek
25 Nick Cousins -76 P-E Bellemare - 24 Matt Read
76 Chris VandeVelde - 27 Boyd Gordon - 13 Roman Lyubimov
47 Andrew MacDonald - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
9 Ivan Provorov - 23 Brandon Manning
55 Nick Schultz - 32 Mark Streit
35 Steve Mason
[30 Michal Neuvirth]
Scratches: Radko Gudas (final game of six-game NHL suspension), Michael Del Zotto (LTIR), Scott Laughton (LTIR), Michael Raffl (upper body), Dale Weise (second game of three-game NHL suspension).
Canadiens
67 Max Pacioretty - 27 Alex Galchenyuk - 11 Brendan Gallagher
62 Arturri Lehkonen - 14 Tomas Plekanec - 47 Alexander Radulov
41 Daniel Carr - 51 David Desharnais - 65 Andrew Shaw
24 Phillip Danault - 17 Torrey Mitchell - 32 Paul Byron
28 Nathan Beaulieu - 6 Shea Weber
79 Andrei Markov - 26 Jeff Petry
74 Alexei Emelin - 8 Greg Pateryn
31 Carey Price
[35 Al Montoya]
Scratches: Mikhail Sergachev (healthy), Zach Redmond (healthy), Brian Flynn (healthy).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»