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Flyers Gameday: 3/18/18 vs. WSH; Flyers-Canes Recap

March 18, 2018, 10:27 AM ET [427 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
GAME 73 PREVIEW: FLYERS VS. CAPITALS

Dave Hakstol's Philadelphia Flyers (36-25-11) are back home on Sunday to take on Barry Trotz's Washington Capitals (41-23-7) at the Wells Fargo Center. Game time is 5:00 p.m. EDT. The game will be televised locally on NBCSNP at nationally on NHL Network.

This is the fourth and final meeting of the season between the teams, and the second in Philadelphia.

On Oct. 14, a rested Flyers team blew out a tired Capitals team by an 8-2 count in the season home opener at the Wells Fargo Center. On Jan. 21 in Washington, a Flyers team that was playing for the third time in four days, scratched out a point in regulation and then skated off with a 2-1 win in overtime on a Travis Konecny goal.

The most recent meeting was on Jan. 31 in Washington. The Flyers enjoyed a strong first period but a combination of inattentive lapses, mediocre goaltending and an inability to kill penalties doomed them to a 5-3 loss. The Flyers took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission -- it easily could have been 3-0 or 4-0-- but watched it evaporate early in the second period. The Capitals went 2-for-3 on the power play, while the Flyers were unable to score on their lone power play and gave up a prime shorthanded scoring chance in the process.

FLYERS OUTLOOK

Sunday is the last game of a home-road-home set of three games in less than four nights. The Flyers will have only had a 22-hour turnaround between opening faceoffs when they take on a more rested Capitals team (in action Friday but idle on Saturday) in the second half of Philly's weekend back-to-back. Philly will have to dig deep to come away with points.

However, the Flyers are coming off an uplifting and much-needed 4-2 in Raleigh on Saturday night. The Flyers found themselves trailing, 1-0, in the third period and getting suffocated by the Carolina Hurricanes as if they were playing against the Jacques Lemaire-coached New Jersey Devils teams of the mid-1990s. Finally, the Flyers broke through.

Travis Konecny (19th goal) re-directed home a Travis Sanheim shot to tie the game at 1-1. Shortly thereafter, a short-side shot from the bottom of the left circle to the outside of the dot hit off goalie Alex Lyon's mask and went into the net. The Flyers were again back down by a goal but they didn't quit working.

Strong work down low in the offensive zone by Nolan Patrick and Oskar Lindblom (first NHL assist) enabled a wide-open Jake Voracek to get a scoring chance in front of the net. Moving from his forehand to backhand, Voracek (17th goal) slid the puck home to re-tie the game at 2-2.

Earlier in the game, a referee in poor position nearly cost the Flyers a goal as Voracek bumped into him as he attempted to defend a Carolina shorthanded rush. Something similar happened in the third period -- referee Francois St. Laurent accidentally knocked down Valterri Filppula in the Carolina zone -- but this one ultimately worked in the Flyers' favor. A near-miss scoring chance in the Philly zone produced a counterattack the other way. Filppula received the puck from Wayne Simmonds and went off on a breakaway. Making a little east-west move, the Finnish veteran outmaneuvered Cam Ward and scored his 11th goal of the season.

Peters pulled Ward for a 6-on-5 attack. Michael Raffl (11th goal of the season) scored on the curveball of a shot from the red line to forge a 4-2 lead. Despite the fact that there was still 1:50 left in the game, Peters essentially ran up the white flag by not pulling Ward again and keeping the manpower at 5-on-5. The defeated Canes went down meekly the rest of the way.

Lyon played a strong game in goal, stopping 23 of 25 shots. On Thursday, he stopped all 18 he faced in relief of starter Petr Mrazek (six saves on 10 shots) in a 5-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Mrazek had little to no chance on the first three goals he yielded but looked bad on the last one, a 3-on-1 in which he incorrectly guessed there would be a pass rather than attempting to play the shooter.

In his 10 games since coming to the Flyers from Detroit, Mrazek has had three excellent performances, two solid ones, three pedestrian outings and two in which he below-average. It has added up to a 4-5-1 record, 3.15 GAA, .887 save percentage and one shutout.

Philly made one lineup change on Saturday from the previous few games, dressing forward Jordan Weal and scratching Jori Lehterä. There was also a line combination switch on the first and third lines with Raffl moving up to play on Sean Couturier's line for the first and second periods while Konecny was played on Filppula's line. Weal simply slotted into Lehterä's spot

The Flyers are 2-6-1 through their first eight games of March. The club entered the March 1 game against Carolina with a chance to move back into first place in the Metro. Had the Flyers not held serve on Saturday in Carolina -- with both New Jersey and Columbus winning their games -- the Flyers would have fallen from third to fifth in the Metro.

The scenarios for Sunday: New Jersey (one point and a 34-32 ROW tiebreaker disadvantage behind the Flyers) is back in action, playing Anaheim on the road. Winners of seven straight games, the Blue Jackets (tied in points with the Flyers but trailing 34-33 in ROW) are idle on Sunday before playing in Boston on Monday.

If the Flyers win over the Capitals by any means, they'd move two points ahead of Columbus pending Monday's outcome in Boston. A Flyers regulation or OT win on Sunday would be strongly preferable in order to at least temporarily establish a 35-33 ROW edge on the Blue Jackets and maintain at least a two ROW edge on the Devils regardless of what New Jersey does in Anaheim.

If the Flyers lose in regulation to the Capitals, Columbus would at least temporarily move ahead of Philly in the standings by virtue of having played one fewer game. If a Flyers regulation loss is paired with a Devils win in Anaheim, the Flyers would drop to fifth place in the Metro and the bottom wildcard spot.

If the Flyers lose to the Capitals in overtime or a shootout, they'd stay ahead of Columbus by one point (pending Monday's outcome in Boston). However, a one-point effort against the Caps paired with the Devils winning by any means in Anaheim would drop the Flyers to fourth place in the Metro (upper wildcard spot) pending what the Blue Jackets do in Boston.

Defensemen Johnny Oduya (lower-body injury, day-to-day) and Robert Hägg (lower body) have been full participants in practices and morning skates. Rookie defenseman Travis Sanheim remains with the team, officially on emergency recall. As soon as Hägg or Oduya are declared ready to play, the Flyers must either use a regular recall on Sanheim or return him to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms. That decision would largely depend on the decision makers' assessment of Sanheim's play since his recall and whether Hakstol is inclined to sit out a veteran such as Brandon Manning in favor of the rookie.

CAPITALS OUTLOOK

The Capitals navigated a rough patch that saw them briefly fall out of first place in the Metro after building a seemingly comfortable lead. Now the team has won four in a row and seven of its last 10 games. On the road, the club has posted a 16-14-5 record for the season.

On Friday in Washington, the Capitals doubled up the New York Islanders by a 6-3 count. Washington yielded three power play goals, including two in the third period that allowed the Isles to get back as close as 5-3, but otherwise dispatched New York with relatively little difficulty and their own power play success balanced off their tough night on the PK.

The Caps got goals from T.J. Oshie (power play, 15th), Nicklas Bäckström (power play, 19th), Matt Niskanen (5th), Alex Chiasson (power play, 8th), Jakub Vrana (13th) and Lars Eller (empty net, 17th). Braden Holtby stopped 22 of 25 shots to earn the win.

The Capitals lost Evgeny Kuznetsov -- one of their two prime playmakers, along with Bäckström -- to an upper body injury in Friday's game. He will not play in Sunday's tilt.

The Caps still have more than enough firepower to withstand Kuznetsov's absence. Future Hall of Famer Alex Ovechkin leads the Caps with 76 points (42 goals, 34 assists) while John Carlson paces the blueline with 13 goals and 57 points.

Sunday scenario: A Capitals win would build a four-point lead on the idle second place Penguins, with either a regulation or OT victory forging a 39-39 ROW tie. A Capitals overtime or shootout loss with still open a three-point lead with the only consequence being that Washington will have used up its game in hand and still have a 39-38 ROW disadvantage in the event of a points tie. A Capitals regulation loss would mean a two point lead (but 39-38 ROW disadvantage) with both Washington and Pittsburgh having 10 remaining games.


Team stat comparisons (NHL overall ranking)

Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.92 (15th), Caps 3.08 (10th)
Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.86 (14th), Caps 2.92 (T-16th)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 20.1% (18th), Caps 22.9% (4th)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 75.2% (T-28th), Caps 79.4 (20th)
Shorthanded goals scored: Flyers 3 (T-26th), Caps 3 (T-26th)
Shorthanded goals against: Flyers 9 (T-27th), Caps 8 (T-23rd)
Faceoff percentage: Flyers 53.6% (2nd), Caps 50.3% (13th)
5-on-5 GF/GA: Flyers 131 (T-23rd)/125 (T-9th) , Caps 144 (8th)/131 (12th)

PROJECTED LINEUPS (will be updated)

FLYERS

28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 12 Michael Raffl
54 Oskar Lindblom - 19 Nolan Patrick - 93 Jakub Voracek
11 Travis Konecny - 51 Valtteri Filppula - 17 Wayne Simmonds
40 Jordan Weal - 21 Scott Laughton - 24 Matt Read

9 Ivan Provorov - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
47 Andrew MacDonald - 6 Travis Sanheim
8 Robert Hägg - 3 Radko Gudas

34 Petr Mrazek
[39 Alex Lyon]

Scratches: 15 Jori Lehterä (healthy), 20 Taylor Leier (healthy), 22 Dale Weise (healthy), 23 Brandon Manning (healthy), 29 Johnny Oduya (lower body), 37 Brian Elliott (IR, core muscle surgery), 30 Michal Neuvirth (lower body, out until April).

CAPITALS

8 Alex Ovechkin - 19 Nicklas Backstrom - 43 Tom Wilson
65 Andre Burakovsky - 20 Lars Eller - 77 T.J. Oshie
13 Jakub Vrana - 83 Jay Beagle - 39 Alex Chiasson
18 Chandler Stephenson- 72 Travis Boyd - 25 Devante Smith-Pelly ​

9 Dmitri Orlov - 2 Matt Niskanen
6 Michal Kempny - 74 John Carlson
44 Brooks Orpik - 29 Christian Djoos​

31 Philipp Grubauer
[70 Braden Holtby]

Scratches 10 Brett Connolly (healthy), 28 Jakub Jerabek (healthy), 92 Evgeny Kuznetsov (day-to-day, upper body).
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