In a bit of strange scheduling the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers will play each other for the first time this year on January 21st. I didn't go all the way back and look but I have to imagine that this is one of the latest dates in the calendar year for both these teams to meet for the first time.

Speaking of the calendar it is National Hug Day. Very fitting.


Philadelphia (48) is one point behind the Penguins (49) with a game in hand.

On one hand Pittsburgh is fortunate that they have a lot of games left in the Metropolitan Division so that they can control their fate, but on the other hand they have a lot of games left in the Metropolitan Division which can control their fate. Pittsburgh has to do well in their divisional games if they want to make the playoffs.

Helping the cause tonight will be Kris Letang's return to the lineup.

On the Flyer's side Sean Couturier will be out of Philadelphia's lineup. He has 14 points in his last 14 games which will be missed by Philadelphia.

Sean Couturier is famously known as the guy who can shut Evgeni Malkin down but when you look at the underlying numbers of that matchup they don't seem to suggest that. Malkin has a CF% of 57.5% against Couturier during regular season play in 83:09 of ice time. During the infamous 2012 playoff series against the Flyers Malkin had a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 66.4% and a points per 60 of 2.0 at even-strength. So yeah. Perhaps one of those incredibly embellished narratives that nobody seems to want to fact check. The Flyers will miss Couturier but perhaps not for his "shutdown" abilities against Malkin.

In other injury news Beau Bennett has resumed skating and is looking to return to game action by the time the all star game hits. His return, however long it is, will help the team.

The goaltender matchup will be Marc-Andre Fleury against Steve Mason. Marc-Andre Fleury has been playing well, really well, since the start of the 2014-15 season but I'm not sure as many people know just how good Steve Mason has been during that same time frame. There are arguments to be made that Mason has been the best goaltender in hockey during that sample.

From the beginning of 2014 until the present Steve Mason leads the NHL in adjusted save percentage at even-strength at .940. That is even better than Carey Price's .939. Fleury has an excellent .931 but that is well below that of Steve Mason.

The gap has closed a little bit this season, but even Philadelphia's backup goalie Michael Neuvirth is playing great hockey.

Individual and Team 5v5 adjGSAA/60 ("Mercad") thru 1/20. pic.twitter.com/peRyPLMkzu

— Nick Mercadante (@NMercad) January 21, 2016

Basically there is potential this evening to see some great goaltending from two teams who have excelled in that area during 2015-16.

Claude Giroux is a tremendously skilled hockey player and the ability to nullify his presence in the hockey game will assist in earning a victory. One of the biggest ways to lessen his impact on the game is to not take penalties. I am not calling him a power play specialist because that would not give him enough credit for even-strength play but a huge sample of his damage is done on the power play.

In the past two seasons nobody has more power play points than Claude Giroux's 51. Nicklas Backstrom is tied with Giroux at 51 and even the great Alex Ovechkin has less points on the man advantage with 47.

Stay out of the box.

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