The playoff push for the Philadelphia Flyers continues on Monday night as they host the New York Islanders.
Looking to snap a four-game losing streak, the Flyers and their playoff hopes are running on fumes at this point.
“Sometimes it’s not the physical rest, it’s the mental rest to get away from it,” said Tortorella after morning skate. “That’s what we tried to do yesterday. Not to divulge any information, but we had a meeting this morning regarding that type of situation, how we can be as fresh as we can be as we go through the next couple of weeks here. I want input from them, so it’s kind of a collaboration.
”All teams are tired this year. I think we have, especially a couple of our defensemen and Ers (Samuel Ersson) has played a ton in a situation that wasn’t scheduled for him, those are the few guys that we’re really concerned about. So we’re talking about it, that’s for sure a huge part of this year, but sometimes, you just have to get through it.”
Tortorella gave the Flyers a day off on Easter Sunday to help ready them for tonight and the rest of the final homestretch of the regular season. Philadelphia has just seven games remaining and is clinging to a playoff berth. They are two points ahead of Detroit for the final Wild Card berth in the East, with the visiting Islanders just five points behind them as well.
After two “trap games” that went awry against Montréal and Chicago, the Flyers need to regroup in a hurry and get back to gaining valuable points. Part of that regrouping involves getting players back from injury, and they’ll get a major piece of their defense back tonight.
Jamie Drysdale will make his long-awaited return to the lineup after missing the last 16 games with an upper-body injury that was believed to be his shoulder after taking a brutal hit on February 25th in Pittsburgh. Since being acquired from Anaheim, Drysdale has two goals and two assists for four points in 17 contests to accompany a -9 rating, 16 blocked shots, and 12 hits in 18:37 per game.
The Flyers also recently received Nick Seeler back from an 11-game absence due to a lower-body injury, so the club is getting healthier at a very opportune time. But they need to finally capitalize instead of letting precious points in the standings continue to slip away.
The Islanders are hot on Philadelphia’s trail and have two games in hand on them while behind by just five points. This is the final meeting of the season between the two rivals, with the Islanders winning on November 22nd in Elmont, 3-2, before the Flyers exacted revenge three days later in the same building, 1-0.
While the Flyers haven’t done themselves any favors in the standings over the last week or so, the Islanders have struggled even worse. New York is just 2-7-1 in their last 10 games after having a six-game winning streak snapped on March 11th. Both teams will be desperate for a victory as we come down to the wire on the 2023-24 campaign.
PHI Record: 36-29-10, 82 pts, 4th in Metropolitan
NYI Record: 31-27-15, 77 pts, 5th in Metropolitan
When: 7:00pm ET
Where: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA
Broadcast Info: NBC Sports Philadelphia, 97.5 The Fanatic
Last Game PHI: 3/30/24, 5-1 L vs. Chicago
Last Game NYI: 3/30/24, 4-0 L at Tampa Bay
PHI Goalie: Samuel Ersson (21-16-7, .892 SV%, 2.79 GAA, 3 SO)
NYI Goalie: Semyon Varlamov (9-8-4, .912 SV%, 2.83 GAA, 2 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#71 Tyson Foerster – #14 Sean Couturier – #11 Travis Konecny
#74 Owen Tippett – #48 Morgan Frost – #89 Cam Atkinson
#27 Noah Cates – #25 Ryan Poehling – #19 Garnet Hathaway
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #21 Scott Laughton – #86 Joel Farabee
#8 Cam York – #6 Travis Sanheim
#24 Nick Seeler – #9 Jamie Drysdale
#5 Egor Zamula – #77 Erik Johnson
#33 Samuel Ersson
#82 Ivan Fedotov
Scratches: #10 Bobby Brink, #15 Denis Gurianov, #18 Marc Staal, #23 Ronnie Attard, #50 Adam Ginning, #62 Olle Lycksell
Injuries: #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
NYI Projected Lineup
#27 Anders Lee – #44 Jean-Gabriel Pageau – #14 Bo Horvat
#18 Pierre Engvall – #29 Brock Nelson – #21 Kyle Palmieri
#53 Casey Cizikas – #13 Mathew Barzal – #20 Hudson Fasching
#17 Matt Martin – #32 Kyle MacLean – #15 Cal Clutterbuck
#28 Alexander Romanov – #8 Noah Dobson
#3 Adam Pelech – #6 Ryan Pulock
#2 Mike Reilly – #41 Robert Bortuzzo
#40 Semyon Varlamov
#30 Ilya Sorokin
Scratches: #4 Samuel Bolduc, #10 Simon Holmström, #25 Sebastian Aho, #26 Oliver Wahlstrom
Injuries: None
News and Notes
– The Flyers are 145-102-26-18 all-time against the Islanders and 83-37-11-11 at home. At Wells Fargo Center (since 1996), the Flyers are 38-15-3-11 against New York.
– In Samuel Ersson’s lone start against the Islanders, he blanked them with 25 saves on 25 shots back on November 25th in a 1-0 victory.
– Cam Atkinson and Sean Couturier share the team lead in points (28) against the Islanders among active Flyers. Atkinson is also the leader in goals (14) while Couturier leads in assists (18) against New York.
– Goaltending prospect Alexei Kolosov has arrived in Philadelphia after leaving KHL club Dinamo Minsk. Kolosov is expected to report to AHL Lehigh Valley in the coming days.
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