GAME 41: FLYERS vs. SABRES
Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (19-15-6) are home on Sunday afternoon to take on Don Granato's Buffalo Sabres (9-25-6). Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 2:00 p.m. EDT. The game will be televised on NBCSP.
This is the eighth and final meeting of the season series between the teams. The Flyers are 5-2-0 against the Sabres this season. On the one hand, all three of the Flyers' shutout victories this season (two by Brian Elliott, one by Carter Hart) have been against Buffalo. The Flyers have also twice staged multi-goal comebacks, in one instance recovering from a three-goal deficit in the third period, to beat Buffalo beyond regulation.
However, two of the Sabres' meager nine wins this season have come at Philadelphia's expense. Both of those were 6-1 blowouts; one in Philly and the other in Buffalo. The latter game saw the Sabres end an 18-game winless streak that included the two games the Sabres were unable to close out on the Flyers in the third period.
Flyers Outlook
The Flyers have played much better hockey so far in April than they did during the disastrous month of March. By record, Philly is a middling 2-1-1 so far this month but the team has been greatly improved from a process standpoint, particularly in terms of puck support. Even the team's long-suffering penalty kill has been very good over the last two games.
Today's afternoon game is the Flyers' fifth in less than seven nights. Energy management -- and avoiding a poor start that forces them to play from behind, which is an issue that has lingered even into the recent stretch of improved overall play -- will be vital.
On Saturday afternoon, the Flyers pulled out a
3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins at the Wells Fargo Center. Travis Konecny played an outstanding game, even apart from tallying a goal and an assist. Continuing a run of strong recent play, Konecny forechecked effectively, skated well, and agitated Boston players. Elliott made big saves at vital moments of the game. Sean Couturier netted the game-winner and Shayne Gostisbehere scored a first-period power play goal. The Flyers ended their season series with Boston at 2-4-2.
Hart will get the start in goal. On Saturday evening, the Flyers announced that rookies Tanner Laczynski (two NHL games played for the Flyers last week) and Wade Allison (awaiting his NHL debut) have been recalled from the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms to the NHL team's Taxi Squad.
Sabres Outlook
Since ending their 18-game losing streak, the Sabres have won two additional games. Overall, the team has points in five of their last 10 games (3-5-2); hardly a big breakthrough but at least more respectable and competitive lately. For the remainder of the season, the Sabres have no pressure on them and are strictly a spoiler club. They have six games remaining against Boston, for example.
In the meantime, the organization itself is focused on its seemingly perpetual rebuild program. The process has yet to yield much in the way of positive results on the ice at the NHL level
despite the team having a first-overall (defenseman Rasmus Dahlin), a pair of second-overall picks (the injured Jack Eichel, and the now 25-year-old Sam Reinhart) and three additional players selected by the Sabres within the top 10 of their Draft classes (defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen and forwards Dylan Cozens and Casey Mittelstadt).
On Saturday, the Sabres traded defenseman Brandon Montour (who has been a thorn in the Flyers' side this season) to the Florida Panthers for a third-round pick in the 2021 Draft. Former Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall, who signed a one-year contract with the Sabres in the offseason but has produced just two goals and 19 points in 37 games, is likely to be on the move by the NHL trade deadline tomorrow at 3 p.m. EDT.
Eichel remains on Injured Reserve with an upper-body injury. He is the biggest name on the Sabres' extensive IR contingent. The team does expect to have Cozens (upper body) back for this game.
The Sabres are the lowest-scoring team in the NHL and have also hemorrhaged goals against at five-on-five; the type of combination one would expect from the NHL's cellar club. The power play, however, has been decent.
The Sabres rank 12th in the NHL in power play efficiency (22.2 percent). The penalty kill had also been in the top-half at one point but has dropped to 18th overall (78.3 percent). It should be noted that the Sabres are the least-penalized team in the NHL this season in terms of total penalty minutes and remain in the top five in terms of fewest times shorthanded. Buffalo is 16-for-17 on the PK against the Flyers through the first seven meetings this season.
Reinhart leads the Sabres with 13 goals and 25 points. As with numerous players in the Flyers' division (the Rangers' Mika Zibanejad and Adam Fox, Boston's David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron, etc.), Reinhart has done more damage this season against the Flyers than against any other team he's faced. Five of his goals have come against the Flyers. He has three against the Devils, two against the Islanders, one against the Bruins, and zero against the Capitals (in seven games) or Penguins (pointless in four games). Ten of Reinhart's 13 goals have come on the road.
Among the Sabres 28 individual multi-point performances this season, 11 have been in the games against the Flyers. This, of course, is the biproduct of Buffalo's pair of 6-1 wins against the Flyers along with their 5-4 shootout loss (March 9) and 4-3 overtime loss (March 29). Even in getting shut out three times by the Flyers, the Sabres have still averaged 2.71 goals per game against Philly this season. They've averaged 2.24 GPG against the rest of the East.
Projected lineups
FLYERS
25 James van Riemsdyk- 14 Sean Couturier - 86 Joel Farabee
21 Scott Laughton - 13 Kevin Hayes - 19 Nolan Patrick
93 Jakub Voracek - 28 Claude Giroux - 11 Travis Konecny
23 Oskar Lindblom - 58 Tanner Laczynski - 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel
9 Ivan Provorov - 61 Justin Braun
6 Travis Sanheim - 8 Robert Hägg
55 Sam Morin - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
37 Brian Elliott
[79 Carter Hart]
PP1: Giroux, Patrick, Farabee, Voracek, Provorov.
PP2: Hayes, Couturier, JVR, Konecny, Gostisbehere.
Scratches: 12 Michael Raffl (healthy), 55 Samuel Morin (healthy), 56 Erik Gustafsson (healthy).
Injured reserve: 48 Morgan Frost (shoulder surgery).
COVID-19 protocol: None.
SABRES
3 Jeff Skinner - 23 Sam Reinhart - 68 Victor Olofsson
74 Rasmus Asplund - 24 Dylan Cozens - 72 Tage Thompson
25 Arttu Ruotsalainen - 37 Casey Mittelstadt - 21 Kyle Okposo
13 Tobias Rieder -15 Riley Sheahan - 20 Cody Eakin
26 Rasmus Dahlin - 10 Henri Jokiharju
78 Jacob Bryson - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
33 Colin Miller - 44 Matt Irwin
35 Linus Ullmark
[31 Dustin Tokarski]
PP1: Reinhart, Mittelstadt, Olofsson, Dahlin, Ristolainen
PP2: Okposo, Thompson, Skinner, Miller, Bryson
Scratches: 4 Taylor Hall (healthy, awaiting potential trade, 40 Carter Hutton (lower-body injury).
Injured reserve: 9 Jack Eichel (upper body), 3 Willam Borgen (forearm fracture), 19 Jake McCabe (knee surgery), 27 Curtis Lazar (lower body), 74 Rasmus Asplund (upper body), 28 Zemgus Girgensons (hamstring surgery).
COVID-19 protocol: None.
**********
Phantoms Weekend Games Postponed
The American Hockey League announced on Saturday that the game scheduled for that evening at the PPL Center between the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Hershey Bears had been postponed for COVID-19 protocol reasons. A few hours later, the league also announced that Sunday's scheduled Phantoms home game against the Binghamton Devils had also been been postponed for the same reason.
No makeup dates have been announced as of yet.
On Saturday evening, as noted above, the Flyers recalled Phantoms rookie forwards Wade Allison and Tanner Laczynski from the farm club to the NHL team's Taxi Squad. That would certainly suggest that both players had negative COVID-19 tests that day and were not high-risk exposure cases.
The Phantoms' next scheduled game is on Wednesday (April 14), on the road against Hershey.
**********
Flyers Warriors in Action
The Philadelphia Flyers Warriors team is an action on Sunday afternoon against the Delaware Department of Corrections hockey team. The game will be held at the Skate Zone in Pennsauken, NJ. Flyers Warriors head coach Brad Marsh indicated that the Warriors roster for this game would consist primarily of their Tier II roster players, with a few of the Tier I group mixed in.
Marsh, of course, is also the Flyers Alumni Association president and the head of Community Development for the Philadelphia Flyers. After Sunday's game, Marsh will be making a special presentation to the Flyers Warriors on behalf of the Flyers Alumni.
For more on the Flyers Warriors program, which is affiliated with the USA Hockey Warriors program for disabled U.S. military veterans from all branches of service,
click here. Adopted by the Philadelphia Flyers in 2019 as an official affiliate, the Flyers' Warriors program has become the gold standard that is being emulated across the NHL by other franchises with interest in sponsoring a Warriors team in their locale.
Prior to the pandemic, in their first season of existence, the Flyers Warriors won the championship in their competition bracket at the 2019 USA Hockey Warrior classic and received an official celebratory proclamation of Flyers Warriors Day by the City of Philadelphia. More importantly, participation in the Flyers Warriors program grew within a single year from one roster to a Tier 1 roster and a Tier 2 group that has enough participating players to ice three separate squads.
Recently, the Flyers Warriors returned to the ice for games after a series of pandemic-driven cancellations last year. Throughout the pandemic, however, the Flyers Warriors players and coaches stayed connected through regular Zoom chats, phone calls, social media interactions, and the like. The goal is to get back to going full speed ahead as soon as possible.
**********
Every Child Deserves a Bike
On April 9, 2021, the Flyers Alumni Association officially announced the launch of a brand new initiative: the "Every Child Deserves a Bike" program. Each month, the Alumni will have an adaptive bicycle custom-built for a Delaware Valley child with special needs. Members of the Alumni with then personally present the bike to him or her.
Each bicycle is quite expensive, costing roughly $5,000 to construct. Thus, the Alumni must rely on individual donations as well as corporate sponsors in order to maintain the program.
"Every Child Deserves a Bike is a spin-off from the 12 Days of Christmas Giving program the Alumni do each holiday season," Flyers Alumni president Brad Marsh said.
"This past year, we had an adaptive bike built for 5-year-old Lucy Brooks. Joe Watson, Jimmy Watson and I delivered it to Lucy on Christmas Eve Day. Seeing Lucy's joy at getting her new bike and getting to know her family -- really nice people, and diehard Flyers fans to boot -- inspired the Alumni to start this new initiative. Lucy has continued to ride since getting the bike, and she zooms around independently on it now."
For children like Lucy with cerebral palsy and other challenges, an adaptive bike can be life-changing. The motto of the Every Child Deserves a Bike program is "building bikes, delivering dreams".
To learn more about the Every Child Deserves a program, visit the Flyers Alumni's brand new official website, FlyersAlumni.net, or
click here to jump to the program overview page.
* To read about Lucy's remarkable personal story,
click here.
* To make a donation,
click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»