GAME 47: FLYERS @ RANGERS
Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (21-18-7) are in Manhattan on Friday to take on David Quinn's New York Rangers (23-18-6). Game time at Madison Square Garden is 7:00 EDT. The game will be televised on NBCSP.
Friday's game is the second half of a back-to-back set at MSG, and the eighth and final game between the teams this season. The Flyers are 4-2-1 against the Rangers this season. However, the season series included a 9-0 whipping the Flyers received at MSG and an 8-3 Rangers blowout win at the Wells Fargo Center the next time the teams played. In the most recent game prior to the current b2b, a late third period goal by Samuel Morin lifted the Flyers to a 2-1 home win. Last night, the Flyers got off to a slow start before they earned a 3-2 win in regulation.
Stellar goaltending by Brian Elliot, a pair of deflection power play goals by James van Riemsdyk (one that went into the net off his face on a painfully double-deflected puck, the other on a nifty backhanded deflection after his return to the game), and a Jakub Voracek goal on a 2-on-1 led the way. Brendan Smith and Artemi Panarin scored for the Rangers.
Flyers Outlook
If they were to have climbed back into the playoff picture in the East Division, the Flyers needed a spectacular month of April to recover from a disastrous month of March. It hasn't happened. The club has played better overall, except in two rather one-sided losses to the Washington Capitals, but deserves their 4-4-3 record.
The team GAA in April is an even 3.00; a stat jacked up by 6-1 and 6-3 losses to the Capitals. While, in March, keeping the puck out their net was the biggest problem (setting an unwanted single-month franchise record with a team 4.41 GAA), the No. 1 issue in April has been sparse goal scoring. The Flyers have scored a combined 22 goals in the 11 games.
The Flyers power play has been Jekyll-and-Hyde to the extreme this month. Percentage wise, the PP in April clocks in at a respectable 20 percent (ranked 12th in the NHL for the month) but it has also created negative momentum in some critical junctures, and yielded too many shorthanded counter chances as well. On April 6, Brad Marchand's third period shorthanded goal in what had been a tie game at the time was just about a death knell for the Flyers' playoff chances at the time.
It's been pretty much the same story on the penalty kill. There have been games this month where the Flyers have gotten torched on the PK -- in particular by Washington and Boston -- but there have been other games where the penalty kill has looked much improved not only in outcome but in structure and execution. Last night, the Flyers relied heavily on big saves from Elliott but managed to go 3-for-3. Overall, the Flyers are at 77.1 percent on the PK in April (ranked 24th), which is only a slight improvement from their overall 30th-ranked 74.3 percent success rate.
Alex Lyon will get the start in goal for the Flyers in Friday's game. The only other potential lineup change might be to reinsert Samuel Morin and rotate someone else (Robert Hà¤gg? Phil Myers?) out for the night.
Rangers Outlook
The Rangers are 11-8-3 on home ice this season but had won six of their previous seven games at MSG before last night's loss. The team's back-to-back regulation losses to the Islanders and Flyers have done grave damage to the Blueshirts' playoff hopes. Entering play on Friday, the Rangers are eight points behind the Bruins for the final playoff spot in the East. Boston, currently riding a six-game winning streak, also holds two games in hand over the Rangers.
Shesterkin gave the Rangers a chance to win on Thursday. He was beaten by the two JVR deflections -- neither of which were stoppable -- and a perfectly placed shot by Voracek on a play where most everyone expected the pass-first Czech winger to try to pass to Claude Giroux on a 2-on-1 rather than shooting the puck. Shesterkin stopped 33 of 36 shots, including stopping Joel Farabee cold on a penalty shot in the final minute of the second period. Twenty-year-old Zac Jones made his NHL debut on the Rangers' blueline on Thursday. Veteran defenseman Jacob Trouba (upper-body injury, suspected concussion) officially remains day-to-day.
Neither the Rangers nor the Flyers will hold a morning skate on Friday.
Projected lineups
FLYERS
28 Claude Giroux -14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek 86 Joel Farabee - 13 Kevin Hayes - 57 Wade Allison 25 James van Riemsdyk - 21 Scott Laughton - 11 Travis Konecny 23 Oskar Lindblom - 59 Jackson Cates - 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel
9 Ivan Provorov - 61 Justin Braun 6 Travis Sanheim - 6 Robert Hà¤gg 53 Shayne Gostisbehere - 5 Phil Myers
34 Alex Lyon [37 Brian Elliott]
PP1: Giroux, Couturier, Allison, Voracek, Gostisbehere PP2: Hayes, Farabee, JVR, Konecny, Provorov
Scratches: 19 Nolan Patrick (healthy), 55 Sam Morin (healthy), 79 Carter Hart (lower body), 58 Tanner Laczynski (lower body).
Injured reserve: 48 Morgan Frost (shoulder surgery).
COVID-19 protocol: None.
RANGERS
20 Chris Kreider - 93 Mika Zibanejad - 89 Pavel Buchnevich 10 Artemi Panarin - 16 Ryan Strome - 43 Colin Blackwell 13 Alexis Lafreniere - 72 Filip Chytil - 24 Kaapo Kakko 17 Kevin Rooney - 21 Brett Howden - 74 Vitali Kravtsov…‹
55 Ryan Lindgren - 23 Adam Fox 79 K'Andre Miller - 6 Zac Jones 22 Anthony Bitetto - 42 Brendan Smith…‹
40 Alexandar Georgiev [31 Igor Shesterkin]
PP1: Panarin, Zibanejad, Kreider, Strome, Fox PP2: Blackwell, Buchnevich, Kakko, Miller, Jones
Scratches: 8 Jacob Trouba (day-to-day, lower body), 12 Julien Gauthier (healthy), 25 Libor Hajek (healthy), 33 Phil Di Giussepe (healthy).
Injured Reserve: 27 Jack Johnson (sports hernia).
COVID-19 protocol: None.
***********
Phantoms vs. Devils
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (12-4-3) are in Newark on Friday to take on the Binghamton Devils (5-11-6) at the Barnabas Hockey House inside the Prudential Center. Game time is 7 p.m. EDT. The match will be streamed on AHLTV.
Friday's game is the first of three in a row between the teams. On Saturday, the venue switches to the PPL Center in Allentown. On Monday, the teams are back in Newark to play the game that was suspended on March 10. Originally, the teams were supposed to complete only the final 40 minutes (the score was 1-1 at the first intermission when the game was suspended). However, since the lineups will be different, the American Hockey League has elected instead to have the teams play a full 60 minutes on Monday and for the one-period team and individual stats from the suspended game to count in the season totals.
Coming off a 16-day schedule break caused by a series of COVID-19 related postponements, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms got off to a tough start and went down, 6-1, to the Hershey Bears at the PPL Center on Wednesday evening.
Very little went right for the Phantoms, who got outshot 34-26, had a bad night on special teams (Hershey was 3-for-7 on the power play, the Phantoms were 1-for-6 with a shorthanded goal yielded), and could not get saves from Felix Sandström (28 saves on 34 shots). Ryan Fitzgerald scored the lone Phantoms goal (PPG, 10th). Flyers 2019 first-round pick Cam York made his pro debut in Wednesday's game. He was minus-two with one shot on goal.