Preview: Flyers vs. Wild
Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (6-7-2) comeplete a back-to-back weekend set of games with a home tilt on Saturday night against Bruce Boudreau's Minnesota Wild (7-4-1). 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 two matches between the inter-conference teams. They will rematch in St. Paul on March 23. Last season, the Flyers won both meetings with Minnesota and, over the past two seasons, have won three of the last four games.
Flyers Outlook
A disastrous third period doomed the Flyers to a 6-3 road load to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night after Philadelphia took a 3-2 lead into the final stanza. Power play and shorthanded goals by Wayne Simmonds and a spectacular solo effort off the rush by Travis Konecny provided the offense for Philadelphia.
Steve Mason was not entirely to blame for an ugly stat line on Friday -- he made just 17 saves on 23 shots -- but was unable to come up with a single momentum save when the Flyers really needed one. Two Toronto goals were scored on breakaways (the latter a shorthanded goal), two were screened (including a 5-on-3 power play goal), one came on multiple cracks at the net in the span of a few seconds and the final one was a soft goal on a Toronto power play.
Hakstol opted to make Michael Raffl a healthy scratch instead of Chris VandeVelde on Friday, while Nick Cousins returned to the lineup after being scratched. Brandon Manning was a healthy scratch on defense, with Nick Schultz getting back into the lineup.
Wild Outlook
The Wild halted a two-game mini-slump on Thursday with a 4-2 road win over the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. A 39-save performance by Devan Dubnyk -- who had a three-game shutout streak late in October-- backstopped the team, while an early third period go-ahead goal by Eric Staal and a late empty netter by Jason Pominville provided the margin of victory after the game was tied 2-2 entering the final stanza.
Over the two previous games, the Wild hit a little mini-slump offensively, scoring just one goal. Even on Thursday, it took 43 shots to score three times before the empty netter. On the flip side, the Wild enter Saturday's game having allowed just 24 goals -- fewest in the NHL -- through their first 14 games.
Longtime Flyers nemesis Zach Parise is out with a lower-body injury. Zac Dalpe is out four to six weeks from Nov. 1 after undergoing knee surgery.
Projected Lineups (subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
10 Brayden Schenn- 28 Claude Giroux - 17 Wayne Simmonds 11 Travis Konecny - 14 Sean Couturier - 92 Jakub Voracek 12 Michael Raffl - 78 P-E Bellemare - 24 Matt Read 76 Chris VandeVelde - 25 Nick Cousins - 22 Dale Weise
15 Michael Del Zotto - 3 Radko Gudas 55 Nick Schultz - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere 9 Ivan Provorov - 32 Mark Streit
30 Michael Neuvirth [35 Steve Mason]
Scratches: Nick Schultz (healthy), Roman Lyubimov (healthy), Andrew MacDonald (lower body), Boyd Gordon (LTIR, upper body).
WILD
22 Nino Niederreiter - 12 Eric Staal - 3 Charlie Coyle 64 Mikael Granlund - 9 Mikko Koivu - 29 Jason Pominville 16 Jason Zucker - 56 Erik Haula - 59 Zack Mitchell 14 Joel Eriksson-Ek - 44 Tyler Graovac - 7 Chris Stewart
20 Ryan Suter - 24 Matthew Dumba 25 Jonas Brodin - 5 Christian Folin 4 Mike Reilly - 46 Jared Spurgeon
40 Devan Dubnyk [35 Darcy Kuemper]
Scratches: Christoph Bertschy (healthy), Nate Prosser (healthy), Zach Parise (lower-body), Zac Dalpe (IR, knee surgery).