Preview: Flyers vs. Canucks
John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (1-1-0) will host Rick Tocchet's Vancouver Canucks (2-0-0) at the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday evening in the Flyers' home opener for the 2023-24 season. Game time is 6:00 p.m. EDT.
This is the first of two meetings this season between the inter-conference clubs. They will rematch in Vancouver on December 28.
The Flyers opened the season with two games on the road, defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets. 4-2, last Thursday and losing to the Ottawa Senators, 5-2, on Saturday afternoon. Travis Konecny collected four points (3g, 1a) to lead the Flyers offensively.
The Canucks swept a home-and-home set with the Edmonton Oilers. Elias Pettersson racked up six points (1g, 5a) in the two games while linemate Brock Boeser posted four goals and an assist.
Philly held an open practice at the Wells Fargo Center on Monday morning. Most notably, top-line center did not participate in the practice. Tortorella said afterwards that the veteran forward is "banged up" and the issue is unrelated to the two back surgeries that Couturier had during the 2022 calendar year. Beyond that, Tortorella refused to comment on severity and how much time -- if any -- that Couturier will miss. Scott Laughton moved from left wing to center for the practice.
The Canucks held a practice at Wells Fargo Center after the Flyers session. I was unable to see any of it -- the Flyers unveiled the new dressing room facilities, Tortorella had media availability and Brian Smith and I recorded an episode of the Prospect Pipeline podcast -- but Vancouver's practice combinations are embedded below the Flyers' potential lineup if Couturier is out.
For a full gameday preview, see today's "Five Things" on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com.
FLYERS
11 Travis Konecny - 21 Scott Laughton - 89 Cam Atkinson 86 Joel Farabee - 48 Morgan Frost -10 Bobby Brink 74 Owen Tippett - 27 Noah Cates - 71 Tyson Foerster 44 Nic Deslauriers - 25 Ryan Poehling - 19 Garnet Hathaway
8 Cam York - 6 Travis Sanheim 18 Marc Staal - 26 Sean Walker 5 Egor Zamula or 36 Emil Andrae - 24 Nick Seeler
79 Carter Hart [33 Samuel Ersson]
CANUCKS
#Canucks have finally showed their lineup in drills at Monday’s practice in Philadelphia:
— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) October 16, 2023
Kuzmenko-Pettersson-Garland
PDG-Miller-Boeser
Joshua-Suter-Beauvillier
Höglander-Lafferty-Studnicka
Hughes-Hronek
Cole-Myers
Soucy-Juulsen
Extras: Mikheyev, Hirose pic.twitter.com/q5HvyuLmbl