The National Hockey League will make a statement on Thursday in regards to updating its coronavirus policy. Whether that will entail following the NBA's decision to suspend the season indefinitely, or a more intermediate measure, such as the ones the Columbus Blue Jackets and the NCAA have undertaken in closing games to the public for the remainder of the season, it seems unlikely that games simply will go on per normal.
The NHL has already taken the step of closing locker rooms to the media after games and practices, and holding availability in the press conference area usually reserved for coaches, playoff postgames and league events. In light of subsequent developments, additional measures are likely.
Tonight's Flyers-Lightning game preview is based on the possibility of the game at Amalie Arena being played as scheduled, whether the arena is open to the public or not. It seems likely that the American Hockey League will adopt an identical policy to the NHL's.
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GAME 69: FLYERS @ LIGHTNING
Beginning a stretch of four scheduled games in six nights, Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (41-21-7 overall, 16-15-3 away) are in Florida to play Jon Cooper's Tampa Bay Lightning (43-21-6 overall, 22-10-2 home) on Thursday night. Game time at Amalie Arena is 7 p.m. EDT.
The game will be televised locally on NBCSP. The radio broadcast will be on 97.5 The Fanatic with an online simulcast on the Flyers Radio 24/7 component of the Flyers Broadcast Network.
This is the third and final meeting of the season between the teams and the second and final game in Tampa. The Flyers are 0-2-0 against the Lightning this season. The Flyers lost 1-0 at home on Jan. 11 and 5-3 in Tampa on Feb. 15.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
On Tuesday, the Flyers saw their nine-game winning streak come to an end More importantly, they missed out on an opportunity to take over first place in the Metropolitan Division.
Philadelphia outplayed the visiting Boston Bruins for the first 40 minutes of the game but could not solve Tuukka Rask. Boston did an excellent job closing out the game in the third period with a 1-0 lead, added a late insurance goal, and down the Flyers by a 2-0 final.
Carter Hart played well in the Boston game, just not quite as spectacularly as Rask. Hart had no chance on Boston's heavily screened first goal and the latter was accidentally deflected up high by Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim, sailing over Hart into the net. Brian Elliott is the scheduled starter in Tampa Bay.
The Flyers announced on Tuesday that defenseman Phil Myers would miss approximately four weeks with a fractured right kneecap suffered when blocking a shot in last Saturday's home win over Buffalo. Shayne Gostisbehere returned to the Flyers lineup, and gave a solid account for himself.
On Wednesday, the Flyers announced that fourth-line center Nate Thompson would miss at least two weeks with a knee sprain. The team recalled center Connor Bunnaman and defenseman Mark Friedman from the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Entering Thursday, the Flyers remain one point behind Washington in the Metro. They are three points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
LIGHTNING OUTLOOK
Tampa was scorching hot for two-plus months, stringing together a pair of separate 10-game winning streaks (the Flyers were the 10th victim in both). They have since cooled off, losing seven of their last 10 games (3-6-1) but are coming off a 2-1 road loss in Toronto on Tuesday after earning a 5-3 road win in Boston on Saturday. In between, Tampa fell into a trap game pitfall, settling for one point from a 5-4 road shootout loss to the lowly Detroit Red Wings.
The Lightning are dealing with some significant injuries of their own. Most notably, No. 1 defenseman Victor Hedman is day-to-day with a lower body injury, and has missed the last two games. He has been skating. Veteran prolific sniper Steven Stamkos is sidelined due to core muscle surgery.
Although they are not yet mathematically locked into second place, the Lightning are eight points plus a signficant tiebreaker disadvantage (38-35) in the regulation wins category behind the President's Trophy race leading Bruins. Tampa, meanwhile, is 12 points ahead of the third-place Maple Leafs. All three teams have 12 games remaining on their respective regular season schedules.
PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek 49 Joel Farabee - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny 21 Scott Laughton - 38 Derek Grant - 18 Tyler Pitlick 12 Michael Raffl - 82 Connor Bunnaman - 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel
9 Ivan Provorov - 15 Matt Niskanen 6 Travis Sanheim -8 Robert Hà¤gg 53 Shayne Gostisbehere - 61 Justin Braun
37 Brian Elliott [79 Carter Hart]
Power Play 1: Giroux, Couturier, Konecny, Voracek, Provorov. Power Play 2: Grant, Hayes, Aube-Kubel, Gostisbehere, Niskanen.
Scratches: 5 Phil Myers (fractured right kneecap, March 7), 25 James van Riemsdyk (broken right index finger, out 4-to-6 weeks from March 4), 44 Nate Thompson (knee sprain, March 10), 59 Mark Friedman (healthy).
LTIR: 55 Sam Morin (torn ACL, out for season), 23 Oskar Lindblom (Ewing sarcoma, out for season), 19 Nolan Patrick (migraines).
LIGHTNING
18 Ondrej Palat - 21 Brayden Point - 20 Blake Coleman 17 Alex Killorn - 71 Anthony Cirelli - 86 Nikita Kucherov 23 Carter Verhaeghe - 9 Tyler Johnson - 37 Yanni Gourde 14 Pat Maroon - 13 Cedric Paquette - 19 Barclay Goodrow …‹
27 Ryan McDonagh - 81 Erik Cernak 98 Mikhail Sergachev - 22 Kevin Shattenkirk 55 Braydon Coburn - 24 Zach Bogosian …‹ 88 Andrei Vasilevskiy [35 Curtis McElhinney]
Power Play 1: Killorn, Point, Johnson, Kucherov, Sergachev Power Play 2: Palat, Cirelli, Maroon, Gourde, Shattenkirk …‹ Scratches: 2 Luke Schenn (healthy), 67 Mitchell Stephens (healthy), 77 Victor Hedman (day-to-day, lower body, March 6), 91 Steven Stamkos (core muscle surgery, March 2).
IR: 44 Jan Rutta (lower body, Feb. 3).
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PHANTOMS UPDATE
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms lost in overtime, 2-1, to the visiting Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins at the PPL Center on Wednesday night. Former Phantom Phil Varone set up Riley Barber (16th goal of the season) for the game winner 55 seconds into sudden death.
For two-plus periods, the Phantoms were unable to solve former teammate Dustin Tokarski (24 saves on 25 shots). Finally, a Kurtis Gabriel re-direct (5th goal of the season) of a Chris Bigras shot knotted the game at 1-1 with 7:06 left in the third period. Mikhail Vorobyev earned the secondary assist.
In a losing cause, Alex Lyon stopped 33 of 35 shots. The Pens' Kevin Roy broke a scoreless deadlock with 4:40 remaining in the second period.
Phantoms rookie center Morgan Frost, who left Sunday's game with a suspected shoulder injury, was in the lineup for Wednesday's tilt with WB/S. He recorded three shots on goal. Frost was on the ice, along with fellow rookie Maksim Sushko and defenseman Bigras when Barber scored the game-winner in OT for the Pens.
The power play has been a season-long struggle for the Phantoms. With an 0-for-3 showing on Wednesday, the Lehigh Valley power play dropped to an abysmal 10.6 percent for the season (24-for-226). They rank dead last in the 31-team league in that category, and have also yielded nine opposing shorthanded goals. The PK went 2-for-2, to improve to 82.1 percent overall (ranked 17th). The penalty kill struggled for much of the first half but has gotten on track, whereas the power play simply has not.
With the loss, the Phantoms dropped to 24-28-10 overall and 17-8-6 at home. WB/S improved to 29-26-8 overall and 14-14-4 on the road. The Phantoms are Pens are scheduled to rematch in Allentown on Friday. On Saturday, the Toronto Marlies are scheduled to pay a visit to the PPL Center.