Two of the most injured teams in the league face off tonight. The Philadelphia Flyers are missing key men like Sean Couturier, Wade Allison, and Cam Atkinson while the Colorado Avalanche will be playing without huge talent such as Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon.
The Flyers come off a low blow loss to the bottom feeding Arizona Coyotes. It added to their 15th loss in the past 17 games. One of those 2 wins happened to be a 5-3 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champs. Was the win a fluke? The Avalanche were, and still are, riddled with injuries totaling almost $24 million dollars in cap space.
Despite the loss, Morgan Frost had easily his best game wearing the Orange and Black. The 23-year-old tallied a goal and 3 assists, participating in all 4 of the Flyers’ goals that night. We can only hope this is the confidence boost the struggling center very desperately needed. James van Riemsdyk also has seemed to roll right back into things returning from his injury, also racking up 1 goal and 3 assists Sunday night.
Tonight’s game will be the last matchup between Colorado and Philadelphia this season. After 7 straight starts, Carter Hart will take a seat and up and coming Felix Sandström will be searching for his 2nd NHL win. The road trip has been nothing short of a disaster so far, but there’s still time to turn it around starting tonight.
PHI Record: 9-13-7, 25pts, 7th in Metropolitan
COL Record: 14-10-2, 30pts, 4th in Central
Last Game PHI: 12/11/22, 5-4 OTL at Arizona
Last Game COL: 12/11/22, 3-2 OTW at St. Louis
When: 9:00pm ET
Where: Ball Arena, Denver, CO
PHI Goalie: Felix Sandström (1-5-1, .889 SV%, 3.40 GAA, 0 SO)
COL Goalie: Pavel Francouz (3-5-0, .911 SV%, 2.90 GAA, 0 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#25 James van Riemsdyk – #48 Morgan Frost – #74 Owen Tippett
#13 Kevin Hayes – #49 Noah Cates – #11 Travis Konecny
#23 Lukáš Sedlák – #21 Scott Laughton – #17 Zack MacEwen
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #38 Patrick Brown – #86 Joel Farabee
#9 Ivan Provorov – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
#6 Travis Sanheim – #61 Justin Braun
#45 Cam York – #24 Nick Seeler
#32 Felix Sandström
#79 Carter Hart
COL Projected Lineup
#62 Artturi Lehkonen – #96 Mikko Rantanen – #13 Valeri Nichushkin
#11 Andrew Cogliano – #37 J.T. Compher – #25 Logan O’Connor
#54 Charles Hudon – #59 Ben Meyers – #93 Jean-Luc Foudy
#22 Dryden Hunt – #18 Alex Newhook – #26 Jacob MacDonald
#49 Samuel Girard – #8 Cale Makar
#7 Devon Toews – #6 Erik Johnson
#17 Brad Hunt – #88 Andreas Englund
#39 Pavel Francouz
#40 Alexandar Georgiev
PHI Injuries: Sean Couturier (back), Bobby Brink (hip), Ryan Ellis (hip), Wade Allison (hip), Tanner Laczynski (upper-body)
Scratched: Cam Atkinson, Max Willman, Tony DeAngelo
COL Injuries: Gabriel Landeskog (knee), Darren Helm (hip), Bowen Byram (lower body), Shane Bowers (upper body), Kurtis MacDermid (lower-body), Evan Rodrigues (lower-body), Nathan MacKinnon (upper-body), Josh Manson (lower-body)
Scratched: none
News and Notes:
– The Flyers search for their first win on this road trip after two OT losses to the Golden Knights and Coyotes.
– Cam Atkinson is skating and traveling with the team. His return should be any day now.
– Morgan Frost recorded his first ever 4-point game Sunday night against Arizona.
Broadcast Info: TV- NBCSP, Radio – 97.5 The Fanatic
