PREVIEW: FLYERS VS. CAPITALS
Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (5-7-3) return to action on Thursday evening as they host Barry Trotz's Washington Capitals (10-4-1). Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:00 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on CSN Philadelphia.
This is the first of four meetings between the teams this season, and the first of two in Philadelphia. The teams will rematch on January 27 and February 7 in DC and March 30 at the Wells Fargo Center. Last season, the Flyers won three of four against the Caps.
For the Flyers, Thursday's game marks the second game in a stretch of four of five matches being played on home ice. The Flyers are on the road on Saturday to play the Carolina Hurricanes. Next week, the Los Angeles Kings (Nov. 17) and San Jose Sharks (Nov. 19) pay visits to Philadelphia.
The Capitals are playing the front end of back-to-back games and the second match of three-in-four stretch. The Caps played in Detroit on Tuesday and will host the Calgary Flames on Friday.
Flyers Outlook
The Flyers have lost seven of their last eight games overall (1-5-2) and each of the last three on home ice (0-2-1). The club enters this came coming off a dreadful performance in a 4-0 shutout loss in their first game at home after ending a poor road trip (1-3-1) with a 3-0 win in Winnipeg.
On Tuesday, the Flyers trailed for 59:03 of the game's 60 minutes. The club played poorly in all three zones and struggled in virtually every aspect of the game. Making his fourth straight start in goal, Michal Neuvirth stopped 36 of 40 shots but was off his game at times.
The next day, Hakstol put the team through a grueling practice centered around physically intensive one-on-one and two-on-two battle drills. The explicit purpose was to get the players focused on competing because, in the coach's estimation, they failed to do in two of the last four games.
Steve Mason is expected to return to the net on Thursday. Neuvirth took a maintenance day on Wednesday, getting checked by a doctor for an unspecified issue. He later said he was fine, and would be available to suit up on Thursday. The player said the doctor visit was not related to anything that happened in Tuesday's game.
Fourth line center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare has been out since suffering a lower-body injury sustained on Oct. 27. Defenseman Evgeny Medvedev (upper body) is officially day-to-day. Both players practiced on Wednesday. Medvedev said he's ready to go, but notably wore a gray jersey at Wednesday's practive rather than the typical black one sported by the available defensemen. Bellemare made a scheduled exit halfway through practice.
The Flyers enter this tilt having scored just 27 games in 15 games. Two seasons ago, the team scored 22 goals through 15 games and had a 4-10-1 record. Claude Giroux had not scored a single goal up to that point. By the end of the season, the Flyers made the playoffs and Giroux, a Hart Trophy finalist, had compiled 28 goals and 86 points.
This time around, it is Jakub Voracek (zero goals, five assists) who is still looking for his first goal of the year entering game 16. For his career, Voracek has nine goals and 16 points in 21 games against the Caps.
Capitals Outlook
The Caps have become a much more complete club under Trotz than they were during previous regimes. The team is still capable of racking up goals at a brisk pace but is now a better defensive club with more consistent goaltending.
Washington enters this game coming off a 1-0 loss to the Red Wings on Tuesday. The game was scoreless for two-plus periods before Andreas Athanasiou scored on an end-to-end rush for his first NHL game.
With goaltender Braden Holtby seeming to have the severe angle-shot covered, the puck somehow found short-side room to squeeze through under the goalie's pad. It was the lone blemish in an otherwise strong game for Holtby (26 saves on 27 shots). At the other end of the ice, the Caps were unable to solve Petr Mrazek on 38 shots.
In Tuesday's game, the Caps lost shutdown defenseman Brooks Orpik to a lower body injury early in the second period. Re-evaluated on Wednesday, his status for Thursday's game is uncertain as of this writing.
Alexander Ovechkin, who is tied Hall of Famer Sergei Fedorov as the NHL's all-time leading Russian-born goal scorer, leads the Capitals with eight goals and 16 points through the first 13 games of the season. In Tuesday's game, he put a whopping 15 shots on goal.
Key team stat comparisons (NHL overall ranking)
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 1.80 (29th), Capitals 3.00 (T-5th) Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.87 (T-22nd), Capitals 2.29 (6th) Even strength Goals For/Against Ratio: Flyers 19/26, Capitals 32/26 Power play efficiency: Flyers 13.6% (27th), Capitals 20.4% (11th) Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 79.0% (18th), Capitals 85.0% (7th) Shots per game: Flyers 30.7 (T-11th), Capitals 30.7 (T-11th) Shots against per game: Flyers 34.3 (29th), Capitals 25.3 (1st) Faceoff percentage: Flyers 50.2% (T-13th), Capitals 50.1% (15th)
Projected lineups (subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
12 Michael Raffl - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek 24 Matt Read - 14 Sean Couturier - 17 Wayne Simmonds 89 Sam Gagner -10 Brayden Schenn - 40 Vincent Lecavalier 76 Chris VandeVelde - 21 Scott Laughton - 25 Ryan White
82 Evgeny Medvedev - 32 Mark Streit 15 Michael Del Zotto - 3 Radko Gudas 55 Nick Schultz - 22 Luke Schenn
35 Steve Mason [30 Michal Neuvirth]
Scratches: Brandon Manning (healthy), R.J. Umberger (foot injury), Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (questionable, lower body).
CAPITALS
8 Alexander Ovechkin - 92 Evgeny Kuznetsov - 77 T.J. Oshie 90 Marcus Johansson - 19 Nicklas Backström - 65 Andre Burakovsky 25 Jason Chimera - 83 Jay Beagle - 14 Justin Williams 21 Brooks Laich - 18 Chandler Stephenson - 43 Tom Wilson
44 Brooks Orpik or 4 Taylor Chorney - 74 John Carlson 27 Karl Alzner - 2 Matt Niskanen 9 Dmitri Orlov - 88 Nate Schmidt
70 Braden Holtby [31 Philipp Grubauer]
Scratches: Brooks Orpik (lower body) or Taylor Chorney (healthy), Stanislav Galiev (healthy), Michael Latta (healthy), Chris Brown (IR, hand).