Game 52 Preview: Flyers vs. Capitals
Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (15-26-10) will host Peter Laviolette's Washington Capitals (28-16-9) in the Flyers Charities Game at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday afternoon. Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 12:30 p.m. (NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic).
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 4-1 home loss to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday. Oskar Lindblom tied the game at 1-1 in the third period but the Flyers coughed up a goal on the very next shift and never drew even again. St. Louis tacked on two empty net goals for the final three-goal margin of victory.
On Thursday, the Capitals suffered a 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Alex Ovechkin's 32nd goal of the season broke up a shutout bid for the Rangers' Igor Sheshterkin (36 saves on 37 shots) with 1:02 remaining in the game. Ilya Samsonov made 17 saves for the Caps in a losing cause.
The Flyers started the season at 6-2-2 through 10 games. Since that time, the team has gone 9-24-8 and fallen into last place in the Metro Division. The club has only won twice so far in the 2022 calendar year: the final game of January and the first game of March.
Joel Farabee, Derick Brassard and Carter Hart will make their returns to the Flyers lineup for this game. Morgan Frost and Max Willman will be healthy scratches. For the Capitals, T.J. Oshie and Justin Schultz returned to the lineup on Thursday.
For an in-depth preview of Saturday afternoon's matchup, see Five Things on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com. Projected lineups are below.
FLYERS
86 Joel Farabee - 28 Claude Giroux - 89 Cam Atkinson
23 Oskar Lindblom - 21 Scott Laughton - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 19 Derick Brassard- 20 Gerry Mayhew
76 Isaav Ractliffe - 38 Patrick Brown - 18 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 61 Justin Braun
6 Travis Sanheim - 70 Rasmus Ristolainen
3 Keith Yandle - 24 Nick Seeler
79 Cart Hart
[35 Martin Jones]
PP1: Giroux, JVR, Farabee, Atkinson, Yandle
PP2: Brassard, Ratcliffe, Konecny, Mayhew, Provorov
CAPITALS
8 Alex Ovechkin - 92 Evgeny Kuznetsov - 73 Conor Sheary
91 Joe Snively - 19 Nicklas Bäckström - 43 Tom Wilson
24 Connor McMichael - 20 Lars Eller - 77 T.J. Oshie
62 Carl Hagelin - 26 Nic Dowd - 21 Garnet Hathaway
42 Martin Fehervary - 74 John Carlson
9 Dmitry Orlov - 3 Nick Jensen
57 Trevor van Riemsdyk - 2 Justin Schultz
30 Ilya Samsonov
[1 Pheonix Copley]
PP1: Ovechkin, Kuznetsov, Bäckström, Oshie, Carlson
PP2: Wilson, Eller, Sheary, Schultz, Orlov
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Phantoms Drop Shootout in Cleveland
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms sustained a 2-1 overtime road loss to the Cleveland Monsters on Friday evening. It was often feisty -- and rather poorly officiated -- game that was fairly low event in terms of shots and scoring chances for 40 minutes before the action picked up in the third period.
Trailing 1-0 with 1:05 remaining in the second period, Charlie Gerard (5th goal of the season) stashed the puck past Cam Johnson to knot the score. Tanner Laczynski and Wyatte Wylie earned the assists.
Cleveland, which received an earlier second period tally by Justin Scott, won the game on the opening shift of sudden-death overtime. Laczynski missed a poke-check attempt and Trey Fix-Wolansky scored on a 2-on-1 to end the game. Thomas Schemitsch and Scott assisted.
In a losing cause, Kirill Ustimenko stopped 18 of 20 shots. His best saves were on a shorthanded 2-on-1 for Cleveland in the first period and a near buzzer-beater in the final three ticks of the second period. The Phantoms mustered 19 shots on Johnson.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign from Friday's game for the Phantoms was that rookie defenseman Cam York finished regulation with a dominant final stanza. He made several highlight-worthy plays with the puck, although he did not get his name on the scoresheet. Prior to that, York's play had been just OK and also dealt with an injury after being sent down by the Flyers at the NHL All-Star break.
Although Laczynski has not played to the same eye-grabbing level in his last two games as he did in his first two since coming off preseason hip surgery, his line as a whole played a strong game on Friday. Laczynski has points (1g, 2a) in three straight games.
The Phantoms (18-19-10) and Monsters (16-21-9) will rematch on Saturday afternoon in Cleveland. Game time is 1:00 p.m. ET.
Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr, who serves as the de facto general manager of the Phantoms, provided Phantoms broadcaster Bob Rotruck with some Phantoms injury updates prior to Friday's game:
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Flyers Daily
On Saturday's edition of the Flyers Daily podcast on the Flyers Broadcast Network, Jason Myrtetus and I did a tandem interview with Alyn McCauley, the Flyers' new director of player personnel.
McCauley, who played 488 NHL games for the Toronto Maple Leafs, San Jose Sharks and LA Kings before injuries forced his retirement at age 30, served as an NHL pro scout for LA and then the Flyers prior to recent promotion to director of player personnel. Jason and I started the interview by talking to Alyn about his journey from playing to scouting. He also had a coaching stint at the Canadian collegiate level.
From there, we got into the main focus of the interview: McCauley's views on the scouting profession, his new role in the Flyers' organization, and the ways that video scouting and analytics increasingly combine with in-person souting to present a more well-rounded picture of players of interest. We also discussed his vision for the team identity he'd like to see the Flyers adopt (to give a specific example, McCauley said that increasing the element of team speed will be a priority this offseason). We discussed why the Flyers may aim to be BOTH a seller and a buyer in weeks and months to come, and how the remaining weeks of the 2021-22 season are being focused on trying to reinstill a more competitive mindset roster-wide on a day-in and day-out basis as a table-setter for whatever personnel changes are to come.
McCauley is a bright guy and an articulate interview subject. The material should be of interest to Flyers fans who have an interest in some of philosophical side of team-building and reshaping a misplaced identity. To listen to the podcast,
click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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