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Flyers Gameday: 3/12/18 vs. VGK |
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GAME 70 PREVIEW: FLYERS VS. GOLDEN KNIGHTS
Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (35-23-11) host Gerard Gallant's Vegas Golden Knights (44-19-5) at the Wells Fargo Center on Monday evening. Game time is 7:00 p.m. EDT. The game will be televised on NBCSNP.
This is the second and final meeting between the interconference teams, and the lone game in Philadelphia. On Feb. 11 at T-Mobile Arena, the Flyers earned a 4-1 win. The Golden Knights outshot the Flyers 39-18 overall (27-11 after the first period) and out-attempted Philly by a 64-34 margin. The quality of chances was not as lopsided.
Sean Couturier led the way offensively, with his 28th goal, two assists, and a 10-for-17 night on faceoffs. The Flyers also got a goal and assist from team captain Claude Giroux. Defensemen Andrew MacDonald and Radko Gudas (empty net) also tallied for the Flyers. Michal Neuvirth stopped 38 of 39 shots to earn the win in goal. Brayden McNabb's goal on a snap shot midway through the first period proved to be Vegas' lone tally of the game. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped only 14 of 17 shots but had little to no chance on any of the Flyers goals.
The Flyers enter Monday's game three points plus a nearly insurmountable 38-33 ROW tiebreaker disadvantage behind the Metro Division leading Pittsburgh Penguins, albeit with one game in hand. In the battle for first-round home ice, the second-place Washington Capitals are two points and a tiebreaker advantage (35-33 ROW) ahead of the Flyers, with the Caps also holding one game in hand. The Penguins are idle on Monday, while the Caps host the Winnipeg Jets.
Philly stands three points plus a tiebreaker edge (33-30 ROW) ahead of the fourth-place New Jersey Devils. The Devils, idle until Wednesday, will play the Golden Knights in Vegas in their next game. One point behind New Jersey, four points and a ROW disadvantage (33-30) behind the Flyers, the lower wildcard seeded Columbus Blue Jackets host the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. One point behind the Blue Jackets, two behind the Devils and six plus a 33-31 ROW disadvantage behind the Flyers -- but with three games in hand on all three clubs -- the Florida Panthers host the Ottawa Senators on Monday.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
The Flyers snapped a five-game winless stretch (0-4-1) and earned their first victory in March with a 2-1 win over the Jets on Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center.
Petr Mrazek was sharp in goal, and the team in front of him outplayed a good Winnipeg team in all three periods. Giroux broke a scoreless deadlock on a delayed penalty on the Jets in the second period. Andrew MacDonald added a much-needed insurance goal to build a 2-0 lead. A Patrik Laine power play goal in the third period brought Winnipeg back within a single goal, but the Flyers held on to win after surviving some scary moments during the Jets' 6-on-5 push in the final minute of play. Overall, Philly did a good job of closing out the game.
With the exception of pumping six goals past star netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy last Saturday in Tampa, goals have been hard to come by for the Flyers for the last two weeks. Dating back to the team's 1-0 shootout win in Montreal, the Flyers have scored no more than two goals in six of their last seven games: 1-0 SO win in Montreal, 4-1 home loss to Carolina, 7-6 shootout loss to Tampa, 4-1 loss to Florida, 5-2 loss to Pittsburgh, 3-2 loss to Boston, 2-1 win vs. Tampa.
Part of this is simply reflective of the way that checking typically gets much tighter leaguewide during the stretch drive. However, the Flyers have also struggled of their own volition to finish off scoring chances. The power play, except for a nicely executed goal early in the Boston game, has not created much in the way of quality opportunities of late.
On the flip side, although the Flyers gave up one power play goal apiece to Pittsburgh and Winnipeg, the team's overall body of work on the penalty kill in the last few weeks has finally moved in a positive direction even if the percentages still look bad. The team has done much better of late both in disrupting plays and coming up with clears from its own zone and also making some things happen on counterattacks up ice. It's a start.
However, a negative sign -- after weeks of doing an excellent job of avoiding needless penalties -- is that the team has been taking too many avoidable penalties in its recent games. The Flyers overtaxed their PK in both the first period of the Pittsburgh game and
Top line right wing Travis Konecny, a frequent undisciplined penalty culprit of late who has also recently fallen back into some bad habits in terms of trying to make low-percentage plays at precarious times of close games, got a reminder from Hakstol. While largely praising the player's worj to the media, Hakstol admitted that he feels Konecny needs to clean up these areas again a bit while otherwise keeping up what he's been doing in making a hugely positive impact on the team since late December.
GOLDEN KNIGHTS OUTLOOK
Preparing for their first-ever game at the Wells Fargo Center, the Golden Knights have been in Philadelphia since Sunday, putting in a practice. The team will be playing the final match of a five-game, nine-night eastern road trip.
The trip has gone well so far (3-1-0 record) for the Pacific Division leading first-year expansion team. The Golden Knights beat New Jersey (3-2), lost to Columbus (4-1), blanked the Detroit Red Wings (4-0) and then skated to a 2-1 win via shootout against the Buffalo Sabres.
Entering Monday's game, Vegas has a stranglehold on first place in the Pacific. The club holds a nine-point cushion plus a virtually insurmountable 41-32 ROW edge on the second-place San Jose Sharks. Over the last 10 games, the Golden Knights are a modest 5-4-1 but so are the Sharks. San Jose's main focus at this point is to hold off the Anaheim Ducks and LA Kings (who are currently below the playoff cutoff).
Monday's game will mark the return to Philadelphia of checking-line center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- one of the most well-liked and well-respected figures within the dressing room during his tenure with the Flyers. The Flyers lost the veteran forward to Vegas in the NHL Expansion Draft. Bellemare's departure opened the door for Scott Laughton to finally stake down an every-game NHL role in the Flyers' lineup.
The Golden Knights' big lead in the standings -- and continued winning ways on its first full-fledged east coast road trip -- has enabled Gallant to give some rest to a slew of players dealing with the assorted bumps, bruises, and nagging ailments that accumulate over the season. The club has a laundry list of players who are either officially on day-to-day status or are on IR. However, top attackers Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson and Tomas Tatar are all healthy and playing.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (will be updated)
FLYERS
28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 11 Travis Konecny
54 Oskar Lindblom - 19 Nolan Patrick - 93 Jakub Voracek
12 Michael Raffl - 51 Valtteri Filppula - 17 Wayne Simmonds
15 Jori Lehterä - 21 Scott Laughton - 24 Matt Read
9 Ivan Provorov - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
47 Andrew MacDonald - 6 Travis Sanheim
23 Brandon Manning - 3 Radko Gudas
6 Travis Sanheim
34 Petr Mrazek
[39 Alex Lyon]
Scratches: 40 Jordan Weal (healthy), 20 Taylor Leier (healthy), 22 Dale Weise (healthy), 29 Johnny Oduya (lower body), 8 Robert Hägg (lower body, out two weeks from March. 10), 37 Brian Elliott (IR, core muscle surgery), 30 Michal Neuvirth (lower body, out until April).
GOLDEN KNIGHTS
81 Jonathan Marchessault - 71 William Karlsson - 90 Tomas Tatar
57 David Perron - 56 Erik Haula - 38 Tomas Hyka
40 Ryan Carpenter -21 Cody Eakin - 89 Alex Tuch
92 Tomas Nosek - 41 Pierre-Édouard Bellemare - 75 Ryan Reaves
3 Brayden McNabb - 88 Nate Schmidt
27 Shea Theodore - 5 Deryk Engelland
6 Colin Miller - 77 Brad Hunt
29 Marc-Andre Fleury
[33 Max Lagace]
Scratches: 15 Jon Merrill (healthy), 47 Luca Sbisa (day-to-day), 19 Reilly Smith (day-to-day, upper body), 24 Oscar Lindberg (day-to-day, upper body), 18 James Neal (day-to-day, lower body), 4 Clayton Stoner (IR, abdominal surgery), 30 Malcolm Subban (IR, hand), 28 William Carrier (IR), Mikhail Grabovski (IR, post-concussion syndrome).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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