Game 41: Flyers @ Sabres
John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (15-18-7) will reach the statistical midpoint of the 2022-23 season on Monday when they are in New York State to take on Don Granato's Buffalo Sabres (20-15-2) at the KeyBank Center.
The Flyers are playing the second half a back-to-back set. The team is coming off a 6-2 home loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday. The Flyers saw both a four-game winning streak and an eight-game streak of scoring at least three goals come to an end.
Travis Konecny (21st goal of the season) and Nicolas Deslauriers (2nd) scored for the Flyers in a losing cause. Konecny has scored a goal in six straight games and brings an eight-game point streak (9g, 6a, 15 points) into this game.
Carter Hart was not particularly sharp in Sunday's game. He stopped just 29 of 35 shots. Even if he'd had his A game, however, it was likely that the Flyers would start Samuel Ersson in the Buffalo game. Ersson was in net for the first three games of Philadelphia's four-game winning streak and, additionally, the Flyers are going to be right back in action on Wednesday.
Tony DeAngelo was benched on Sunday after the first shift of the second period; a decision made by Tortorella and not assistant coach Brad Shaw, who typically is delegated defense pair rotation responsibility. It seems likely that DeAngelo will be right back in the lineup on Monday, paired with Travis Sanheim at 5-on-5 and seeing PP1 duty.
Morgan Frost, who had a strong first period on Sunday along with linemates Owen Tippett (arguably the Flyers' best player in the opening stanza) and James van Riemsdyk, had a very rough second period. Frost turned over two pucks -- one in trying to make an extra move in the offensive zone, the latter on a risky pass near his own net, which got snuffed out and sent directly to John Tavares in the slot -- that ended up in the Flyers' net. In fairness to Frost, the first turnover didn't produce an odd-man rush or breakaway but resulted in a goal on a Conor Timmins point shot that seemed stoppable for Hart. Even so, it was a situation where there were more risk than benefit to trying to make a second stickhandling move. A simpler, live-to-fight-the-next-battle play was in order.
The good thing about the B2B: It's a chance for the Flyers collectively and the individual players who were at less than their best on Sunday to rebound immediately. But it won't be an easy task.
Buffalo, the highest-scoring team in the NHL this season, has won eight of their last 10 games and boasts a home power play that is clicking at 31 percent. The flip side of the equation: the Sabres give up a lot of scoring chances and goals, too, and their home PK ranks last in the NHL. It's a chance for the Flyers to do better than they did on a brutal special teams night on Sunday.
For an in-depth preview of Tuesday's game, including head-to-head matchup keys, team stat trends and more, see today's Five Things on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com.
The seemingly ageless Craig Anderson is in goal for the Sabres on Monday. Late-blooming power forward Tage Thompson has added four goals to his season total (31) over the last two games and recorded a hat trick and four points against Washington two games ago.
The Flyers did not hold a morning skate on Monday. The Sabres did skate.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
Flyers
86 Joel Farabee - 49 Noah Cates - 11 Travis Konecny 25 James van Riemsdyk - 48 Morgan Frost - 74 Owen Tippett 13 Kevin Hayes - 21 Scott Laughton - 57 Wade Allison 44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 38 Patrick Brown - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen 6 Travis Sanheim - 77 Tony DeAngelo 45 Cam York - 61 Justin Braun
33 Samuel Ersson 79 Carter Hart
Sabres
No changes to the Sabres’ lines/pairs:
— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) January 9, 2023
Skinner-Thompson-Tuch
Peterka-Cozens-Quinn
Mittelstadt-Jost-Olofsson
Girgensons-Krebs-Okposo
Dahlin-Samuelsson
Power-Clague
Bryson-Lyubushkin
Jokiharju-Fitzgerald