We'll make this brief because there's not much more analysis to be done on either of these teams. They are what they are: one a team trying to turn around it's season after a dreadful start while the other is trying to push it's way out of a perpetual .500 hundred holding pattern.
The first time these teams met they combined for a 17-goal outburst in the fall of 2011. A game that saw two goalies run from the ice only to return and that may be the one thing that was not all that strange.
What's interesting is the approach to management that the Jets and Flyers take. Could two teams be anymore opposite?
The Jets are a quiet, patient and calculated group following the strategic plan with precise execution. The Flyers on the other hand are reactionary, vocal, and move as the situation suggests or allows. There's no room for mistakes and if one is made they correct it quickly?
Which one is a better track is hard to say but take a look at two players, one from each team, Sean Couturier and Mark Scheifele. Taken 10 and 11th overall in the 2011 draft these two will be forever linked in Jets fans minds as many feel Couturier was the pick that the Jets should have made.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
What we have now is two teams that need to keep their very recents winning trends going. While Claude Giroux is not scoring at the pace expected he is still contributing with 4 points in the last 5 games but only one goal. For the Jets Andrew Ladd has come alive and Bryan Little is roofing every puck he touches but Kane seems to have gone a bit MIA along with Blake Wheeler. Wheeler seems to be having his own Giroux-like struggles in the first 20 games and has had trouble finding his groove.
So what's in store?
It could be a puck battle, it could be a shoot out, it could be a goalie duel, as that's what happens when you put to inconsistent and somewhat desperate teams against each other. There have been trade rumours out of Philly and one from Winnipeg involving Evander Kane but nothing that really amounts to a whole lot of anything.
One thing I think will be interesting is seeing how Scheifele and Couturier battle should they meet each other on special teams. Scheifele barely sees any PK time and spends more on the PP while Couturier has become a stalwart for the Flyers on their PK unit.
If I had to pick a storyline for tonight I think these two teams are going to trade chances, battle up and down the ice and rely on the goalies to be the last team standing. That's probably not the way Noel or the Jets want to play but if history is any indicator fans at the MTS Centre are in for some fire-wagon hockey tonight.