Playing their penultimate game of the preseason and the final one at home, the Philadelphia Flyers play host to the New York Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night. Game time is 7 p.m. EDT. The game will be televised on NBCSP+.
The Flyers are 3-2-1 to date during the preseason. On Monday, a lineup mostly comprised of Flyers regulars had a poor first period and dug themselves a hole against a "Boston Bruins" lineup overwhelmingly comprised of AHL-bound players. The most notable NHL player on the Boston side was veteran Lee Stempniak. The Flyers ultimately fell into a 4-0 hole and a late comeback bid fell just short in a 4-3 regulation loss.
After Wednesday's practice, Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol indicated that the team would probably not have a full lineup of regulars in Thursday's game. Rookie hopefuls such as Carsen Twarynski and/or second-year pro defenseman Mark Friedman could be in the lineup. Wayne Simmonds is likely to play the final preseason game in Boston on Saturday. The hope is for Sean Couturier to appear in that game as well, but that is not a certainty as he has been off the ice for three days while dealing with "soreness'. Flyers GM Ron Hextall said that Couturier will be ready for opening night of the regular season regardless.
Projected Flyers lineup:
JVR-Patrick-Voracek Lindblom-Vorobyev-Twarynski Raffl-Laughton-Knight Leier-Weal-Weise
Provorov-Gostisbehere MacDonald-Gudas Sanheim-Folin
Hart [Stolarz]
Rangers Roster
31 Dustin Tokarski (G) 40 Alexandar Georgiev (G) 8 Cody McLeod 13 Kevin Hayes 17 Jesper Fast 22 Kevin Shattenkirk 26 Jimmy Vesey 29 Cole Schneider 34 Michael Lindqvist 38 Steven Fogarty 42 Brendan Smith 43 Libor Hajek 46 Rob O’Gara 48 Brett Howden 50 Lias Andersson 54 Adam McQuaid 55 Ryan Lindgren 81 Ville Meskanen 90 Vladislav Namestnikov 95 Vinni Lettieri