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Flyers Gameday: 12/8/16 vs EDM (50th Anniversary Goalies Heritage Night) |
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PREVIEW: FLYERS VS. OILERS
Looking to build a seven-game winning streak, Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (15-10-3) play host to Todd McLellan's Edmonton Oilers (14-10-4) on Goalies Heritage Night at the Wells Fargo Center. Game time is 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on CSN Philadelphia.
This is the first of two meetings between the inter-conference teams this season. The clubs will rematch on Feb. 16 in Edmonton. Last season, the Flyers suffered a pair of ugly regulation setbacks to the Oilers, losing 4-2 in a road game overshadowed by a Connor McDavid injury and a desultory 4-0 home shutout in March with McDavid back in the Edmonton lineup.
The 50th Anniversary Heritage Night to celebrate goaltenders was selected for December 8 to coincide with the 29th anniversary of Ron Hextall scoring the first goal in NHL history to be shot into an opposing team's net by a goaltender on December 8, 1987. Prior to the start of the 2016-17 season, the Flyers conducted an online fan poll to select which goaltenders in team history that fans would like to see honored on this night.
The five honorees as chosen by the fans: Bernie Parent, Ron Hextall, the late Pelle Lindbergh, Pete Peeters and Brian Boucher. Lindbergh will be represented by his longtime girlfriend/fiancee Kerstin Pietzsch-Somnell, who traveled from Stockholm to Philadelphia just to represent Pelle on behalf of his family to the say thank you to the Flyers fans. At Kerstin's request, mid-1980s Flyers equipment manager Kevin Cady (Pelle's closest friend around the Flyers) has come from Maine to Philly to honor Pelle's memory along with the other goalies being celebrated.
Flyers Outlook
The Flyers bring a six-game winning streak into this tilt, but Tuesday night's 3-2 overtime home win against the Florida was not the way the Flyers wanted to play. Florida dominated the first and third periods, and it took a 42-save performance by Steve Mason -- including several 10-bell stops -- and a two-goal performance by Wayne Simmonds to get even one point from the match. Jakub Voracek's game-winning goal in the final nine seconds of OT secured a second point.
On Wednesday, the Flyers activated veteran center Boyd Gordon from the long-term injured reserve list and placed Matt Read (upper-body injury) onto IR. Radko Gudas, who missed two games over the weekend due to illness and sat out Tuesday's game was well, will return to the Flyers lineup against Edmonton. Michael Del Zotto will be a healthy scratch.
With four goals in the last two games, Simmonds enters this game leading the Flyers with 26 points in 28 games, including a team-high 15 goals. He is followed by Claude Giroux (seven goals, 18 assists), Jakub Voracek (nine goals, 15 assists), Brayden Schenn (four goals, 12 assists in 25 games), Travis Konecny (four goals, 10 assists), Shayne Gostisbehere (four goals, 10 assists) and Mark Streit (four goals, nine assists).
The Flyers will have an optional morning skate on Thursday. However only four players are slated to skate. The team had a 30-minute practice at the Skate Zone on Tuesday, in which Mason was given a day off after starting five games in eight nights.
With the Flyers playing for the sixth time in 10 nights, Hakstol emphasized after Tuesday's practice that the team needs to make positive plays with the puck, both to avoid getting caught in long shifts hemmed in the defensive zone. The Flyers went to avoid shifts where, at best, they chip the puck out of the defensive zone, hurry off for a quick line change and give Edmonton opportunities to go right back into the Philly end.
Along similar lines, Giroux stressed the need for all personnel to pick one another up by bearing down to generate energy and create momentum to put the players on the next shift in an advantageous position.
Forcing the Oilers to play defense neutralizes their deadly transitional game and speed. Wearing McDavid and company down on their own prolonged defensive shifts also helps to prevent transitional chances from turning into anything more than a dump-in to get fresh troops on the ice.
Oilers Outlook
After a decade of missing the playoffs following a surprise run to the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, the perennial doormat Oilers are finally starting to yield some teamwide benefits from the personnel that's been added via the Draft and the offseason trade and free agent markets. The team enters this game in first place in the Pacific Division.
Although the Oilers have had to settle for one point in each of their last two games, Edmonton has earned points in eight of the last 10 games (5-2-3). The Oilers enter this game coming off a 4-3 overtime road loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday. Edmonton battled back from an early 2-0 deficit to score the next three goals. Jordan Eberle (power play), Milan Lucic and Leon Draisaitl
tallied for Edmonton, while Cam Talbot stopped 22 of 26 shots.
Nineteen-year-old offensive wunderkind McDavid enters Thursday's game leading the NHL's Art Ross Trophy race with 36 points by seven points, including a league-high 25 assists to go along with 11 goals. Next up on the Oilers' scoring leader list is Draisaitl (11 goals, 11 assists), followed by Eberle (eight goals, 13 assists), Lucic (eight goals, 12 assists), former Flyers draft pick and farmhand Patrick Maroon (eight goals, five assists) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (four goals, nine assists). Andrej Sekera leads the blueline with 11 points (three goals, eight assists).
In the meantime, the much-maligned offseason trade that sent offensively gifted forward Taylor Hall to the New Jersey Devils for young defensive-minded defenseman Adam Larsson has helped a needy and currently injury-depleted Edmonton blueline. Larsson comes into the game averaging north of 20 minutes of ice time per game, and has registered 83 credited hits and 46 blocked shots to date. He's been part of the story for Edmonton's 10th-ranked penalty kill.
Key team stat comparisons (NHL overall ranking)
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 3.11 (4th), Oilers 2.93 (7th)
Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 3.04 (26th), Oilers 2.61 (13th)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 23.8% (2nd), Oilers 20.4% (10th)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 81.3% (T-18th), Oilers 84.0% (10th)
Shots on goal per game: Flyers 31.9 (T-4th), Oilers 31.9 (T-4th)
Shots against per game: Flyers 28.8 (7th), Oilers 29.9 (14th)
Faceoff percentage: Flyers 50.0% (T-12th), Oilers 47.6% (29th)
Projected Lineups (subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
12 Michael Raffl - 28 Claude Giroux - 17 Wayne Simmonds
11 Travis Konecny - 10 Brayden Schenn - 93 Jakub Voracek
76 Chris VandeVelde - 78 P-E Bellemare - 13 Roman Lyubimov
58 Taylor Leier - 25 Nick Cousins - 22 Dale Weise
9 Ivan Provorov - 47 Andrew MacDonald
32 Mark Streit - 3 Radko Gudas
53 Shayne Gostisbehere - 23 Brandon Manning
35 Steve Mason
[41 Anthony Stolarz]
Scratches: Nick Schultz (healthy), Sean Couturier (lower body, suspected left MCL), Boyd Gordon (healthy), Michal Neuvirth (IR, lower body), Matt Read (IR, abdominal area), Michael Del Zotto (healthy).
OILERS
27 Milan Lucic - 97-Connor McDavid - 29 Leon Draisaitl
19 Patrick Maroon - 93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - 14 Jordan Eberle
44 Zack Kassian - 36 Drake Caggiula - 98 Jesse Puljujärvi
23 Matt Hendricks - 55 Mark Letestu - 15-Tyler Pitlick
4 Kris Russell - 6 Adam Larsson
2 Andrej Sekera- 83 Matt Benning
77 Oscar Klefbom - 79 Dillon Simpson
33 Cam Talbot
[50 Jonas Gustavsson]
Scratches: Mark Fayne (day-to-day, undisclosed), Darnell Nurse (IR, lower body), Eric Gryba (IR), Brandon Davidson (IR, shoulder), Andrew Ference (IR, hip), Iiro Pakarinen (IR, knee).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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