QUICK HITS: DECEMBER 31, 2017
1) The Flyers took Saturday off on the heels of their back-to-back games in Sunrise and Tampa Bay. The team will practice in Voorhees on Sunday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 10:30 a.m. ahead of returning to the Wells Fargo Center to play the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday.
2) Until the Flyers play again, all they can do is scoreboard watch to see if they lose additional ground in the playoff chase as the season approaches its statistical midpoint. The Flyers got a bit of help on Saturday with the Carolina Hurricanes losing in regulation to the St. Louis Blues. Philly remains five points (plus an 18-16 ROW tiebreaker disadvantage) behind the New York Rangers for the higher wildcard seed and four points (plus an 18-16 ROW disadvantage) behind the New York Islanders for the final wildcard seed. The Islanders are in Denver on Sunday to play the Colorado Avalanche while the Rangers play the Buffalo Sabres in the 2018 Winter Classic on New Year's Day.
3) The lineup change to move Travis Konecny to the top line at 5-on-5 with Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux has started to pay some dividends. Right from their first game together, Konecny injected some of the element of speed off the rush that Jakub Voracek had brought to the line. While Wayne Simmonds was on the line, it became more a grinding-and-cycling trio.
4) With the Flyers coming off a win in Tampa Bay, it would not be surprising if Dave Hakstol stayed with the same lineup he used on Friday. That would mean Travis Sanheim remaining a healthy scratch in favor of Brandon Manning, Jori Lehterठplaying over Taylor Leier and Brian Elliott making his 14th straight start in goal. Neuvirth may finally get his first start since Nov. 28 in one of the weekend back-to-back games against St. Louis (whom he shut out on the road earlier this season in arguably his best performance since the 2016 playoffs) and Buffalo.
5) Defenseman Mark Alt cleared waivers on Saturday. He was assigned to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Although eligible to play, he was not in the lineup for the Phantoms on Saturday night as they hosted the Charlotte Checkers.
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PHANTOMS HELD IN CHECK BY CHARLOTTE, 5-2
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms had to settle for a split of their back-to-back home games with the Charlotte Checkers. On Saturday night, Charlotte skated off with a 5-2 win as two late second period goals by the Checkers put Charlotte ahead to stay. Charlotte went on to add a late third period insurance goal and two empty-net goals sandwiched around a Phantoms goal with 1:58 left in the game.
Will O'Neill (power play, 4th goal of the season) and Oskar Lindblom (11th) scored for the Phantoms in a losing cause. Mike Vecchione (15th assist of the season) and Philippe Myers (7th) assisted on O'Neill's mid first period power play goal. Tyrell Goulbourne (5th assist) and Phil Varone (28th) got the assists on Lindblom's late third period goal that momentarily cut the gap to 4-2. Alex Lyon made 38 saves in a losing cause.
O'Neill's man advantage tally at 10:06 stood as the game's only goal until Charlotte's Nicolas Roy knotted the game at 15:37 of the second period. A boarding major and game misconduct on Phantoms defenseman Max Lamarche proved costly as Charlotte went ahead with a power play goal by Aleksi Saarela at 17:30.
Trailing by one goal entering the third period, the Phantoms hurt their own cause with penalties taken by veterans T.J. Brennan and Greg Carey. Lehigh Valley got outshot, 14-8, in the final stanza. Finally, Charlotte opened a 3-1 lead at 17:30 on Warren Foegele's 17th goal of the season.
Lindblom got the Phantoms back to within 4-2 at 18:02. In his last 12 games, the Swedish rookie left winger has seven goals and 12 points. He had a game-high five shots on goal in Saturday's tilt.
The Checkers quickly responded to Lindblom's goal with empty netters by Andew Poturalski and Patrick Brown to seal the three-goal outcome.
While the Phantoms (21-10-4) lost in regulation, the Providence Bruins (21-8-3) settled for one point on Saturday night in a 3-2 overtime. On a points basis, the Phantoms hold first place in the Atlantic Division by a single point over Providence. However, the Bruins, who hold three games in hand, lead the Atlantic based on points percentage.
The Phantoms are now idle until Friday, Jan. 5 when they are on the road to take on the Toronto Marlies. The next night, the Phantoms visit the Rochester Americans.
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WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS UPDATE
Three Flyers prospects were in preliminary round action on Saturday at the World Junior Championships in Buffalo:
* Carter Hart recorded an 18-save shutout of Denmark in Canada's 8-0 win. In three preliminary round appearances, Hart posted a 2-0-1 record, 1.95 GAA, .929 save percentage and one shutout. Team Canada now has two days off before the medal round begins on January 2. The Canadians could potentially play any of Russia, the Czech Republic or Switzerland in the single-elimination quarterfinals.
* Linus Högberg continued to see very scant ice time on Team Sweden's deep blueline, playing just 7:14 over 13 shifts in Tre Kronor's 7-2 blowout of Switzerland on Saturday. Sweden finishes the round robin (preliminary) portion of the tournament with a New Year's Eve game against German Rubtsov and Team Russia. The Swedes cannot play Canada in the medal round quarterfinals but, otherwise, their opponent will be determined by Sunday's outcome.
* As expected, Team Belarus has been largely overmatched in the round-robin, but put up a game fight in going down 6-5 to the Czech Republic on Saturday. The Belarusians led 1-0 at the first intermission but a five-goal outburst by the Czechs in the second period proved to be just a little too much to overcome. One Belarusian player who has been effective in every game is Flyers right wing prospect Maksim Sushko, who logged 23:07 of ice time against the Czechs and posted a pair of assists. In four games, Sushko produced four points (one goal, three assists), 11 shots on goal and a plus-one rating despite his team being outscored 20-10 overall.
* Sunday's games: Czech Republic vs. Switzerland (noon), USA vs. Finland (4 p.m. ET), Slovakia vs. Denmark (6 p.m. ET), Sweden vs. Russia (8 p.m. ET).
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CHL AND NCAA PROSPECT UPDATES
* OHL: Playing for the third time in three nights, the Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds (32-3-2) played the more rested visiting Guelph Storm (18-13-4) to a 3-3 tie through 65 minutes before prevailing via shootout. With the victory, the Greyhounds extended their winning streak to 23 games.
Flyers 2017 second pick Isaac Ratcliffe scored a pair of goals for Guelph, who took a 3-2 lead into the third period. Ratcliffe, who had six shots on goal, earned second-star honors in a losing cause.
Ratcliffe's roommate from the Flyers' development camp in July, 2017 first-round pick Morgan Frost, took third-star honors. Frost scored a first period goal and later assisted on Barrett Hayton's goal on the opening shift of the third period that tied the score at 3-3. Frost was 14-for-23 on faceoffs overall but 5-for-5 in crunch time over the final 3:01 of regulation and throughout OT. He had also had a shot on goal in OT.
Neither Ratcliffe nor Frost scored on their shootout attempts. The Greyhounds' Jack Kopacka scored in the top of the first round for the only goal for either side. Ratcliffe was unsuccessful in the bottom of the second round and Frost was unable to end the game in the top of the third.
With his goal and assist, Frost extended his current point streak to 14 games (10 goals, 22 assists, 32 points). Over his last 23 games, Frost has averaged two points per game (17 goals, 29 assists, 46 points).
Here are Frost's updated season totals and OHL rankings: 36 games played, 21 goals (tied for 6th), 39 assists (tied for 1st with Jordan Kyrou), 60 points (1st), plus-46 (1st).
The Greyhounds will go for their 24th straight win and Frost will aim to extend his point streak to 15 games. Next up on the Greyhounds' docket is a road game against the Mississauga Steelheads (14-21-1).
Ratcliffe has compiled back-to-back two-goal games. For the season, he has 18 goals and 32 points in 34 games. Over the last nine games, he has six goals, five assists and 11 points. The Storm are right back in action on Sunday, visiting the Sudbury Wolves (10-21-5). After that, Guelph is on the road on Thursday to play the Niagara IceDogs and then hosts the Owen Sound Attack on Friday.
* OHL: The Eastern Division leading Hamilton Bulldogs (23-7-6) earned a 7-4 home win over the second-place Kingston Frontenacs (18-11-6) on Saturday night. Flyers 2017 fourth-round pick Matthew Strome scored a pair of goals and took first-star honors for the game.
The burly left wing is now up to 20 goals and 39 points in 34 games this season. He has points in seven straight games (six goals, four assists, 10 points) and eight of his last nine games (seven goals, six assists, 13 points).
The Bulldogs are right back in action on Sunday, visiting the Niagara IceDogs (18-11-5). After that, Hamilton hosts the Peterborough Petes on Wednesday.
* QMJHL: The Quebec Remparts dropped a 4-1 home verdict on Saturday to the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. Playing his second game for Quebec after being traded from Victoriaville, Flyers 2016 second-round pick Pascal Laberge was held pointless and was minus-two. He had one shot on goal and was 6-for-7 on faceoffs. For the season to date, Laberge has played a combined 33 games, with six goals, 14 assists and 20 points. Quebec (20-13-4) returns to action on Sunday to visit the Rimouski Oceanic (22-10-4).
* WHL: Carsen Twarynski had an assist and two shots on goal as well as a successful shootout attempt as the Kelowna Rockets claimed the bonus-point victory in a 3-2 home final against the Victoria Royals on Saturday. The 20-year-old Twarynski has 40 points (24 goals, 16 assists) in 34 games this season. The British Columbia Division leading Rockets (23-11-3) return to action on Wednesday, hosting the Tri-City Americans (19-10-4).
* NCAA: Ohio State completed a weekend home sweep of Niagara with a 4-1 win on Saturday. Sophomore right winger Tanner Laczynski chipped in one assist and two shots on goal. For the season to date, Laczynski has 25 points (nine goals, 16 assists) in 20 games played. Laczynski's 1.25 points per game average is tied for 16th nationally.
* NCAA: UConn was blanked 2-0 at Boston College on Saturday. Senior UConn defenseman David Drake was not on the ice for either BC goal.