GAME 40: FLYERS @ KINGS
In the third game of a six-game road trip and the final game of the 2010s, Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (22-12-5 overall, 9-10-1 away) are in California on Tuesday to take on Todd McLellan's Los Angeles Kings (16-21-4 overall, 10-7-1 home). Game time at the Staples Center is 9:00 p.m. ET.
The game will be televised on NBCSP. The radio broadcast will be on 97.5 The Fanatic with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
This is the first of two meetings this season between the interconference teams, and the lone game in LA. They will rematch at the Wells Fargo Center on Jan. 18.
Last season, the Flyers went 1-0-1 against the Kings, with a regulation 5-2 road win (Nov. 1, 2018) and 3-2 home shootout loss (Feb. 7, 2019) after Jakub Voracek scored in the final 18 seconds of regulation to force overtime.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
Across three different California locales (San Jose, Anaheim and LA), the he Flyers are playing for the third time in less than 96 hours. The team had a complete off-day on Monday in order to get some rest before this game.
After suffering an ugly 6-1 loss in San Jose on Saturday, the Flyers bounced back for a 2-1 overtime win in Anaheim the next night. Sean Couturier scored in regulation, while Kevin Hayes scored the OT winner. Voracek set up both goals, and passed Flyers Hall of Famers Eric Lindros and Rick MacLeish for 6th place on the franchise all-time assist list (370). Brian Elliott earned the win, stopping 27 shots in a row after yielding a seeing-eye goal on the game's first shot.
The Flyers, 1-1-0 on the current post-Christmas break road trip, are 5-1-0 over their last six games but just 5-4-0 over the last night. They enter Tuesday one point ahead of the Carolina Hurricanes for fourth place in the Metro Division and three points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for third. Pittsburgh, idle on Tuesday, dispatched of Ottawa on Monday to finish December with a 10-2-0 record.
The Flyers got Michael Raffl back in the lineup on Sunday. They are close to getting Scott Laughton (IR, groin) back, too. If Laughton is good to go for Tuesday, the Flyers could assign veteran Andy Andreoff to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms to clear a roster space.
The NHL announced on Monday that Travis Konecny has made the All-Star Game for the first time in his four-year career. The 22-year-old leads the Flyers with 34 points (11g, 23a) in 36 games. He missed three games earlier this month due to a concussion. He has two assists in three games since his return to the lineup. Overall, Konecny has seven points in his last seven games, dating back to the home game against Ottawa in which he was injured late in the first period.
Almost everything with Konecny has been positive this season, even apart from his productivity. He's significantly reduced a lot of low-percentage gambles he often took in the first three years of his career and his weak-side play in his own zone has also improved significantly. Just about the only item of minor recent concern is that he has scored just three goals since Nov. 10; a span of 20 games.
With an off-day on Monday, the starting goalie for Tuesday's game will not become clear until the team holds a morning skate at the Staples Center. Normally, assuming there is a practice day one day ahead of a game, Vigneault will publicly identify the next game's starter at that time. Typically, with the exception of back-to-back games and resets after (rare) multi-night breaks, Vigneault goes on a merit-based system for selecting the next starter. If that holds, Elliott would get Tuesday's start in LA.
Entering Tuesday's game, the Flyers have averaged 3.08 goals per game (15th) and have a team 2.77 GAA (7th). The power play checks in at 19.6 percent (13th) with three shorthanded goals allowed, while the penalty kill comes in at 83.7 percent (6th) with two shorthanded goals scored. The team's 54.6 percent faceoff winning percentage tops the NHL.
KINGS OUTLOOK
The Flyers have the NHL's single most unfavorable schedule this season in terms of the number of potential fatigue-factor games where they are a potentially tired team facing a more rested opponent. While Philly is playing for the third time in four nights, the Kings have had back-to-back nights off. Factoring the Christmas break, in which every team in the league had at least three off-days (Christmas Eve day, Christmas, Boxing Day), the Kings will be playing for just the fourth time in the last 10 nights. That's about as rested as any team can be this time of year.
Apart from lots of recent rest and staying within the Pacific time zone continuously since completing a grueling stretch of eight of nine games on the road, not much has gone the Kings way. The team did OK during its road-heavy schedule earlier this month and has posted at least one point in seven of its last 10 games (5-3-2) but remains in last place in the Western Conference with 36 points overall.
The current incarnation of the Kings are no longer the 5-on-5 dominant team with elite goaltending that they were in winning two Stanley Cups earlier this decade. The 2019-20 Kings are nine goals underwater at 5-on-5 (71 GF - 80 GA) and rank at the very bottom of the NHL on special teams with a awful 86.4 composite number(12.6 + 73.8). That's a highly undesirable combination that inevitably leads to more losses than wins.
Anze Kopitar remains one of the preeminent two-way forwards in the NHL. At age 32, he leads the team with 15 goals and 35 points (11 power play points) after 41 games. He has also won north of 56 percent of his faceoffs.
There are still plenty of other familiar veteran names on the Kings from their glory years. From time to time, those players can still alter or take over a game. However, it happens nowadays with much less frequency and with longer dry spells in between.
Former perennial Norris Trophy candidate Drew Doughty, who turned 30 earlier this month and now is seven games away from hitting the 900 game mark in the NHL, remains of the most heavily-used all-situations players in the league He had a statistically awful season last year. This seasons has been a notch better but still nowhere close to his former standards. Statistically, he has posted six goals and 25 points this season and has been credited with 70 hits. He's minus-10 in traditional plus-minus.
Ex-Flyer Jeff Carter, who will turn 35 on New Year's Day, now has 1,021 games of NHL mileage on him. After scoring just 13 goals last season, he's already tallied 12 this season. However, Carter has a modest 20 total points at the statistical midpoint of the season. He still averages 17 minutes of ice time per game.
Career-long King forward Dustin Brown, who turned 35 last month, had a resurgence two seasons ago and brought back-to-back seasons with at least 50 points into this year. In 2019-20, he's still relied on extremely heavily (18:52 TOI, trailing only Kopitar among LA forwards). Offensively, he is on pace for 16 goals and 38 points. Brown, recently under the weather, is questionable for Tuesday's game but did not practice on Monday and missed the team's two previous games after the Christmas break.
Veteran goalie Jonathan Quick, a two-time Jennings Trophy winner (2013-14, 2017-18) and Conn Smythe Trophy winner in the 2012 playoffs, had a rough season last year and things have only gone slightly better this year. Quick, who will turn 34 on Jan. 21, brings a 10-15-2 record, 3.05 GAA and .893 save percentage in this game. He's only won one of his last five starts (1-3-1) and has given up 16 goals in that span with an .892 save percentage.
Quick's backup, former Dallas Stars first-round pick Jack Campbell, has made 14 appearances this season (6-6-2, 2.84 GAA, .894 SV%). He's started three of the team's last seven games, going 2-0-1 with a 2.31 GAA and .908 save percentage. Campbell will turn 28 on Jan. 9.
Defenseman Joakim Ryan (undisclosed injury) is day-to-day. If he is unable to play on Tuesday, Kale Clague could get into the LA lineup.
Entering Tuesday, the Kings have averaged just 2.54 goals per game (ranked 29th) and have a team 3.12 GAA (T-18th). The power play ranks 30th at just 12.6 percent and the penalty kill is 29th at 73.7 percent; combining for the worst overall special teams effectiveness in the entire NHL this season. While Kopitar remains one of the NHL's top faceoff men and Carter is historically tough to beat on his strong-side (right circle) draws, the Kings as team are 13th (50.3 percent) at the dot.
PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS (subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek 25 James van Riemsdyk - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny 11 Michael Raffl - 21 Scott Laughton - 18 Tyler Pitlick 49 Joel Farabee - 24 Mikhail Vorobyev - 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel
9 Ivan Provorov - 15 Matt Niskanen 6 Travis Sanheim - 61 Justin Braun 53 Shayne Gostisbehere - 8 Robert Hà¤gg
37 Brian Elliott [79 Carter Hart]
Power Play 1: Giroux, Couturier, JVR, Konecny, Provorov. Power Play 2: Farabee, Hayes, Voracek, Gostisbehere, Niskanen.
Scratches: 5 Phil Myers (healthy), 44 Chris Stewart (healthy), 10 Andy Andreoff (in lineup if Laughton isn't ready to play, sent to AHL if Laughton is activated) IR: Scott Laughton (groin) LTIR: 55 Sam Morin (torn ACL, out for season), 23 Oskar Lindblom (Ewing sarcoma, out for season), 19 Nolan Patrick (migraines)
KINGS
19 Alex Iafallo - 11 Anze Kopitar - 73 Tyler Toffoli 29 Martin Frk - 77 Jeff Carter - 74 Nikolai Prokhorkin 9 Adrian Kempe - 46 Blake Lizotte - 51 Austin Wagner 13 Kyle Clifford - 10 Michael Amadio - 64 Matt Luff …‹
6 Joakim Ryan - 8 Drew Doughty 56 Kurtis MacDermid - 26 Sean Walker 15 Ben Hutton - 3 Matt Roy …‹
32 Jonathan Quick [36 Jack Campbell…‹]
Power Play 1: Kempe, Kopitar, Toffoli, Iafallo, Doughty. Power Play 2: Frk, Carter, Lizotte, Amadio, Walker.
Scratches: 34 Kale Clague (healthy), 23 Dustin Brown (illness) IR: 24 Derek Forbort (back), 27 Alec Martinez (right wrist laceration)
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World Junior Championships Update
Tuesday marks the final day of preliminary round action at the 2019-20 IIHF World Junior Championships in the Czech Republic. Two of the Flyers' four participating prospects will be in action as team captain Adam Ginning and Team Sweden oppose Slovakia and Egor Zamula and Team Russia play simultaneously take on Germany. In later games on Tuesday, Canada plays the host Czechs and Finland plays Switzerland.
On Monday, Team USA skated to a 4-3 OT win over the Czech Republic with Cole Caulfield scoring the game-winner. Flyers prospects Bobby Brink (9:43 TOI, 12 shifts) and Cam York (6:46 TOI, nine shifts, minus-one) were played sparingly by head coach Scott Sandelin.
Also on Monday, Sweden easily dispatched Kazakhstan, 6-2. Ginning skated 17:33 TOI across 25 shifts and was plus-one.
For a rundown of how all four Flyers prospects performed in the tournament heading into yesterday's games, click here.
New Year's Day is an off-day at the WJC. The single-elimination medal round games get underway on Wednesday.
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Phantoms Update
After an 0-3-0 weekend and just two wins in the month of December (2-9-0), the Lehigh Valley Phantoms find themselves mired in last place in the Atlantic Division with a 12-16-5 record and .439 points percentage. Goals have been very hard to come back for the last month.
Currently, the Phantoms are the lowest-scoring team in the Eastern Conference, tallying just 75 goals over the first 33 games of the season. Special teams have been a big problem, with the Phantoms just 14-for-124 (11.3 percent) and allowing four shorthanded goals. The penalty kill has also struggled at 79.8 percent but has improved over the last month.
This weekend, the Phantoms have another 3-in-3 on tap; all on the road in Canada. On Friday, Lehigh Valley visits the Laval Rocket (16-14-4). On Saturday, they play the Belleville Senators (19-12-1). They wrap up on Sunday against the Toronto Marlies (19-9-3).
Reassigned to the Phantoms on Sunday, Flyers 2017 first-round pick Morgan Frost will be back in the Lehigh Valley lineup for the weekend trio of games.