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Flyers Gameday: 2/1/20 vs COL

February 1, 2020, 11:55 AM ET [104 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
GAME 52: FLYERS vs. AVALANCHE

In the second game of a back-to-back and middle segment of a road-home-road set of three games in four nights, Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (27-17-7 overall, 17-4-4 home) host Jared Bednar's Colorado Avalanche (28-15-6 overall, 14-8-2 away) on Saturday night. Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:00 p.m. ET.

The game will be televised on NBCSP+. The radio broadcast will be on 97.5 The Fanatic with an online simulcast on the Flyers Radio 24/7 component of the Flyers Broadcast Network.

This is the second and final meeting of the season between the teams, and the lone game in Philadelphia. On Dec. 12, the Flyers lost a hard-fought 3-1 game at the Pepsi Center.

The Avalanche scored once each period, and a dominant second period by the Flyers went for naught as they only saw a one-goal deficit increase to two.

Matt Calvert (6th goal of the season) scored once and Mikko Rantanen (7th and 8th) tallied twice as the Avalanche put a 3-0 stranglehold on the game. Claude Giroux (10th) cut the gap to 3-1 with 5:12 remaining in the game, but Colorado closed out the game.

Flyers goalie Carter Hart played better than his stats (3 goals against on 28 shots) would suggest, but absorbed the loss. Pavel Francouz flirted with a shutout for nearly 55 minutes and stopped 31 of 33 shots to earn second-star honors.

FLYERS OUTLOOK

The Flyers enter Saturday in a three-way tie (61 points in 51 games) with Toronto and Carolina for the lower wildcard seed in the Eastern Conference. However, because the Flyers have the fewest regulation wins (18) of the three teams and Toronto the most (22, one more than Carolina), the Flyers are officially two notches below the wildcard cutoff line.

Philly is one point (plus a 21-18 regulation wins tiebreaker disadvantage) behind upper wildcard seeded Columbus. The Blue Jackets, who have won six games in a row, are on the road on Saturday for a matinee against the Buffalo Sabres. The Flyers are two points shy (plus a 19-18 RW disadvantage and with two fewer games remaining on the schedule) from a points tie for third place in the Metro with the New York Islanders.

On Friday, the Flyers exited a nine-day break for the All-Star weekend and the team's bye week to complete the road half of a home-and-home set with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Flyers took a 1-0 lead to the first intermission, then gave up three goals in the second period in less than a six-minute span to fall behind, 3-1. To their credit, the Flyers recovered to get back within a goal by the end of the second period and re-knot the score at 3-3 early in a dominant third period. Unfortunately, an uncharacteristic giveaway in overtime by Sean Couturier and an inability to get a line change led up to Sidney Crosby winning the game for Pittsburgh, 4-3.

Jakub Voracek (power play, 11th), Tyler Pitlick (5th goal, 8th assist), Scott Laughton (7th goal), Matt Niskanen (15th and 16th assists), Joel Farabee (11th assist), Nicolas Aube-Kubel (3rd assist) and Kevin Hayes (14th assist) got on the scoresheet for Philadelphia.

On a night in which both Crosby and Evgeni Malkin racked up three points (one goal and two assists apiece) and Kris Letang also scored, the Flyers needed someone among Couturier, Claude Giroux, Travis Konecny, James van Riemsdyk or Ivan Provorov to step up in kind to deliver what would have meant the difference between a two-point (quite possibly in regulation) or one-point game, it didn't happen. There were a few scoring chances among this group -- either on the shooting or setup side -- but no payoff.

Brian Elliott wasn't awful in goal, despite ugly stats (four goals allowed on 20 shots). He did make some really good saves, especially two in the first period. However, he was no better than average overall. Letang's goal was poorly played. Crosby's game-winner, while far from a routine save, wasn't unstoppable. There were a few other plays where Elliott was unable to cleanly play pucks and it led to some chaos. Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry outplayed Elliott on this night, and was the primary reason that Pittsburgh even got the game to OT despite Philly's dominance in the third period with the game tied at 3-3.

Now it's time for the Flyers to quickly turn the page and deal with yet another top-end caliber opponent in what has been a nearly unrelenting series of them on both sides of the schedule break. The December loss in Colorado was actually the Flyers' best-played game of a dismal 0-3-0 road trip overshadowed by Oskar Lindblom's Ewing Sarcoma bone cancer diagnosis.

On Thursday, Vigneault indicated that his plan in goal was for Alex Lyon to get the start against Colorado; his second start in the absence of Carter Hart (lower right abdominal muscle strain). Lyon played a so-so game in a 4-1 home loss to Montreal that was roughly of similar caliber to Elliott's play in Pittsburgh on Friday. Elliott, overall, has had a good season. Vigneault is banking on the team stepping up defensively in front of Lyon. The team's overall home defensive/GAA numbers are very good, especially compared to mediocre road stats. Lyon does have four career NHL wins to his credit.

There may be one skater change in the Flyers' lineup on Saturday, but that depends on the availability of defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere (Jan. 14 arthroscopic knee surgery). Gostisbehere practiced in full on Thursday but it was only his first practice and third time skating since getting injured on Jan. 8; which Gostisbehere described as a worsening of a pre-existing nagging injury. "Ghost" said that he had to regain his stamina on the ice before he could play but it wouldn't take long to do that.

AVALANCHE OUTLOOK

Will there be a rustiness factor in the first period that works against Colorado? Will be a fatigue factor that hampers the Flyers against a rested opponent? Time will tell, but the first period is an even more important than usual segment of Saturday's game for the Flyers.

Colorado figures to play cautiously at first while regaining their game legs and passing touch, while the Flyers figure to try to be aggressive in the opening 10 minutes. It doesn't always work out that way, but that's the rule of thumb for how clubs approach these types of games.

The Avs, who last played on Jan. 20, have been on an 11-day schedule hiatus since their last game. The team was en route to Philadelphia while the Flyers were on their way to Pittsburgh. The Avalanche had a practice in Philly on Friday, followed by a full night's rest.

Before the break, Colorado had won three games in a row and had claimed at least one point from seven of its last 10 games (5-3-2). That is ancient history with a 10-day break on the other side, so the slate is wiped clean in terms of any carryover momentum.

Over the last few seasons, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen have done massive damage in meetings with the Flyers. So, too, has their regular third line member, Gabriel Landeskog. Several times, that line alone provided the margin by which the Avs beat the Flyers. The Flyers will need similar success against MacKinnon to what they accomplished in five of six periods against Crosby and Malkin. However, just like those two players in Friday's second period, MacKinnon in particular can suddenly light up the scoreboard in a hurry.

Getting enough top-of-lineup production to offset or exceed whatever the MacKinnon and Nazem Kadri lines generate on Saturday should give the Flyers a good chance to win unless the bottom-six battle goes the Avs's way.


PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS (subject to change, will be updated)

FLYERS

25 James van Riemsdyk - 28 Claude Giroux - 11 Travis Konecny
49 Joel Farabee - 14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek
21 Scott Laughton - 13 Kevin Hayes - 18 Tyler Pitlick
12 Michael Raffl - 82 Connor Bunnaman - 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel

9 Ivan Provorov - 15 Matt Niskanen
6 Travis Sanheim -5 Phil Myers
8 Robert Hägg - 61 Justin Braun

34 Alex Lyon
[37 Brian Elliott]

Power Play 1: Giroux, JVR, Konecny, Hayes, Provorov.
Power Play 2: Couturier, Farabee, Voracek, Sanheim, Niskanen.

Scratches: 79 Carter Hart (abdominal muscle strain), 53 Shayne Gostisbehere (day-to-day, knee).

LTIR: 55 Sam Morin (torn ACL, out for season), 23 Oskar Lindblom (Ewing sarcoma, out for season), 19 Nolan Patrick (migraines).


AVALANCHE

92 Gabriel Landeskog - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 92 Mikko Rantanen
13 Valeri Nichushkin - 91 Nazem Kadri - 95 Andre Burakovsky
11 Matt Calvert - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 37 J.T. Compher
83 Matt Nieto - 17 Tyson Jost - 72 Joonas Donskoi​

27 Ryan Graves - 8 Cale Makar
49 Samuel Girard - 6 Erik Johnson
16 Nikita Zadorov - 28 Ian Cole​

31 Philipp Grubauer
[39 Pavel Francouz​]

Power Play 1: Landeskog, Kadri, Rantanen, Makar
Power Play 2: Compher, Jost, Nichushkin, Burakovsky, Girard​

Scratches: 44 Mark Barberio (healthy), 81 Vladislav Kamenev (healthy)

IR: 26 Colin Wilson (lower body)

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