Game 75 Preview: Flyers @ Sabres
In the road half of a home-and-home set, interim head coach Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (23-40-11) are in New York State on Saturday to take on Don Granato's Buffalo Sabres (27-38-11). Game time at KeyBank Center is 7:00 p.m. EDT (NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic). The scene will shift to the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 4-0 home shutout loss to the New York Rangers on Wednesday evening. he Sabres enter this game coming off a 6-2 home loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.
Philadelphia's lineup remains decimated by injuries. Cam Atkinson may return for Sunday's game but that decision will be made on gameday. The Flyers' leading scorer will definitely miss Saturday's game in Buffalo. Fourth-line center Nate Thompson will return to the lineup after missing Wednesday's game against the Rangers. Carter Hart (lower-body, iffy to be available to play again this season), Cam York (lower body, day-to-day), Rasmus Ristolainen (upper body, could miss roughly a week) and Patrick Brown (out for the season) also went down in Tuesday's 9-2 pummeling by the Capitals and remain out of the lineup.
Felix Sandström, whom the Flyers returned to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms in order to start Friday's game against the Bridgeport Islanders, was recalled again to the NHL club on Saturday morning. He will back up Martin Jones in Buffalo and then will likely get the start in Sunday's rematch in Philadelphia.
For an in-depth preview of Saturday's matchups, statistical trends and players to watch, see Five Things on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
25 James van Riemsdyk -13 Kevin Hayes - 74 Owen Tippett 23 Oskar Lindblom - 21 Scott Laughton - 11 Travis Konecny 86 Joel Farabee - 38 Morgan Frost - 46 Bobby Brink 49 Noah Cates - 44 Nate Thompson - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 54 Egor Zamula 6 Travis Sanheim - 8 Kevin Connauton 3 Keith Yandle - 47 Ronnie Attard
35 Martin Jones [32 Felix Sandström]
SABRES
53 Jeff Skinner - 72 Tage Thompson - 71 Victor Olofsson 19 Peyton Krebs - 37 Casey Mittelstadt - 89 Alex Tuch 74 Rasmus Asplund - 24 Dylan Cozens - 21 Kyle Okposo 96 Anders Bjork - 28 Zemgus Girgensons - 29 Vinnie Hinostroza
78 Jacob Bryson - 26 Rasmus Dahlin 25 Owen Power - 10 Henri Jokiharju 4 Will Butcher 45 Casey Fitzgerald
41 Craig Anderson 31 Dustin Tokarski
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Phantoms Update: OT Loss vs Islanders, Providence in Town on Saturday
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms, in dire need of a string of regulation wins to boost their faint playoff hopes, settled for one point in a 2-1 home overtime loss to the Bridgeport Islanders at the PPL Center on Friday night. In many ways, the game was similar to last Sunday's game in Bridgeport. The Phantoms threw massive amounts of rubber at veteran former NHL goalie Cory Schneider and came away with little more than frustration.
The Phantoms bombarded Schneider with 31 shots over the opening 40 minutes of the game -- 10 shots in the first period and a whopping 21 shots on goal in the middle stanza -- but mustered only a Maksim Sushko goal (10th) in the first minute of the opening period. Trailing 1-0 at the first intermission, the Islanders got the game to the third period tied at 1-1 as a result of an Otto Koivula tally with 3:21 remaining in the second period.
The Phantoms, playing their fourth game in six nights, seemed to have the air go out of their balloon a little bit after applying so much pressure for two periods and having little to show for it. Bridgeport was the better team in the third period but Felix Sandström (who finished with 19 saves on 20 shots through the end of regulation) helped get the game to overtime with a couple of his best saves of the game. Schneider finished with 35 saves on 36 shots including a half-dozen saves on Max Willman and a combined four saves against Wade Allison and Tanner Laczynski.
The 3-on-3 sudden death overtime ended quickly as Austin Czarnik won the game for Bridgeport at the 26-second mark, assisted by Koivula and Mitch Vande Sompel. It was the first and only shot for either team in overtime.
A struggle for the team most the season, the Phantoms' bottom-ranked power play (tied for 31st ,14.2 percent) had two opportunities -- a full-length 5-on-4 for two minutes and an abbreviated chance canceled out after 1:16 by a Garrett Wilson slashing minor -- to extend a 1-0 lead to two goals in the second period. The Phantoms were unable to capitalize. The Phantoms killed off the remaining time on Wilson's minor but Koivula scored on the next shift to make it a 1-1 game.
The Phantoms (27-30-12. .478 points percentage) host the third-place Providence Bruins (33-20-10) at the PPL Center on Saturday evening. Providence has already clinched a playoff spot out of the Atlantic Division and have won back-to-back games despite playoff overall so-so hockey of late. Bridgeport's OT win advanced them to a 30-28-11 overall record (.514 points percentage) and the Phantoms also lost more ground on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (32-29-8, .522 points percentage) because the Pens claimed a 3-2 overtime home win against the Hershey Bears on Friday.
The only good news for the Phantoms on Friday was that the free-falling Hartford Wolf Pack (30-30-8, ,500 points percentage) sustained a 4-1 road loss to the Toronto Marlies, enabling Leigh Valley to pick up a little ground on the seventh-place Hartford club. The Wolf Pack, who have lost back-to-back games in regulation, have won only one of their last 10 games (1-8-1).
At this point, the Phantoms can't worry about the Penguins. On Saturday, apart from the Phantoms needing to beat Providence, Lehigh Valley needs to the host W-B/S Pens to beat Bridgeport in regulation and for the host Rochester Americans (34-27-9) to prolong Hartford's misery by sending the Wolf Pack to another regulation loss. Time is running out on Ian Laperriere's club and Friday's overtime loss wasn't good enough.