It’s a battle of losers tonight at Canadian Tire Centre as two teams look to end their losing streaks.
The Philadelphia Flyers have lost three in a row to Carolina (5-4 OT), New York Rangers (1-0 OT), and Toronto (5-2). Two of the three teams are off to good starts and are expected to make serious runs in the playoffs, and while the first 10 games of the Maple Leafs’ season have been anything but spectacular, they were still never expected to flounder for the rest of the season (re: a win via scoring 5 goals after being in the bottom of the league in goals for).
The Ottawa Senators too have faced top end competition throughout their losing streak, starting with Minnesota (4-2), Florida (5-3), Tampa Bay (4-3), and Vegas (5-4).
The biggest takeaways from the scores alone for the Flyers are:
- They brought 2 of the 3 teams to overtime
- They scored more than 2 goals in only 1 out of the 3 games
For the Senators:
- 2 of the 4 games were decided by 1 goal (an .898 SV% and 3.58 GAA isn’t helping you there)
- They were able to score 3 or more goals in 3 of the 4 games they played.
The Flyers have had the better goaltending, and the Senators are scoring more. Cam Talbot makes his first start of the season after sustaining a rib injury in training camp, and the Sens are hoping to get a lot more stability in net.
Tonight also marks the first time Claude Giroux faces off his former club after playing 1,000 games for the Flyers. He is still aging like fine wine, producing 9 points (5g, 4a) over 10 games this season, skating alongside Alex Debrincat in Ottawa because the Flyers just had to draft Pascal Laberge over him in 2016, who is currently playing in the ECHL.
PHI Record: 5-3-2, 12 pts, 5th in Metropolitan
OTT Record: 4-6-0, 8 pts, 8th in Atlantic
Last Game PHI: 11/2/22, 5-2 L at Toronto
Last Game OTT: 10/30/22, 5-4 L vs. Vegas
When: 7:00pm ET
Where: Canadian Tire Centre, Kanata, Ontario
PHI Goalie: Carter Hart (5-0-2, .943 SV%, 2.10 GAA, 0 SO)
OTT Goalie: Cam Talbot (NHL Career: 201-142-0, .915 SV%, 2.62 GAA, 0 SO – made 13 saves on 13 shots in relief in season debut on Thursday)
PHI Projected Lineup
#86 Joel Farabee – #13 Kevin Hayes – #11 Travis Konecny
#49 Noah Cates – #21 Scott Laughton – #74 Owen Tippett
#20 Kieffer Bellows – #58 Tanner Laczynski / #48 Morgan Frost – #17 Zack MacEwen
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #23 Lukas Sedlak – #57 Wade Allison
#9 Ivan Provorov – #77 Tony DeAngelo
#6 Travis Sanheim – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
#24 Nick Seeler – #54 Egor Zamula / #61 Justin Braun
#79 Carter Hart
#32 Felix Sandström
OTT Projected Lineup
#7 Brady Tkachuk-#57 Shane Pinto-#19 Drake Batherson
#12 Alex DeBrincat-#18 Tim Stutzle- #28 Claude Giroux
#14 Tyler Motte-#47 Mark Kastelic-#21 Mathieu Joseph
#45 Parker Kelly-#27 Dylan Gambrell-#16 Austin Watson
#72 Thomas Chabot-#26 Erik Brannstrom
#85 Jake Sanderson-#23 Travis Hamonic
#5 Nick Holden-#22 Nikita Zaitsev
#33 Cam Talbot
#31 Anton Forsberg
PHI Injuries: Cam Atkinson (lower-body), Sean Couturier (back), Patrick Brown (back), Bobby Brink (hip), Ryan Ellis (hip), Artem Anisimov (PTO, lower-body), James van Riemsdyk (finger)
Scratched: Egor Zamula, Tanner Laczynski
OTT Injuries: Josh Norris (shoulder), Artem Zub (upper body)
Scratched: Magnus Hellberg, Jacob Bernard-Docker, Dylan Gambrell
News and Notes
– The Senators have played well at home (4-2-0) despite losing all 4 games of their recent road trip.
– Cam Talbot comes back in net with a career .915 SV%, much better number than Anton Forsberg’s career .898 SV%.
– Claude Giroux is still dominating the faceoff dot, winning 52.78% of his faceoffs this season so far and he has taken 108 total, the most by a Senator this year.
– The Flyers’ powerplay has began to slip, moving down from 17th in the league to 23rd during their recent slump.
Broadcast Info: TV – NBC Sports Philadelphia+, Radio – 93.3 WMMR
