The Philadelphia Flyers meet the Stars in Dallas after a lackluster performance against the Blues in St. Louis on Tuesday, ending in a 4-2 defeat.
Philadelphia will surely regroup on some level with John Tortorella returning behind the bench. It’ll be interesting to watch the effort tonight with Tortorella resuming his duties behind the bench, especially after one game where the team only put on 5 shots on goal over the first two periods in their overtime defeat against the Ottawa Senators.
Tony DeAngelo will sit tonight, with Ronnie Attard taking his assumed position. Carter Hart will be in net tonight after sitting out the last 5 games with an undisclosed lower-body injury, with Felix Sandström backing him up tonight. Samuel Ersson was sent back to AHL Lehigh Valley earlier today.
Things have not been good for the Flyers after their 5-1-1 homestand. They have since dropped 4 straight to Ottawa, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and St Louis.
For now, we’ll just look at their most recent 3 games to get a closer snapshot of where they are statistically. Over their last 3 games, they have allowed 14 goals, or in other words, 4.66 goals allowed per game, which clears their 22nd-league worst 3.33 goals allowed per game. They have only scored 7 goals over this 3 game stretch, good for a puny 2.33 goals per game. In a league where the goals scored average is at 3 goals per game, you simply aren’t going to cut it with that number.
Even though their penalty kill ranks 24th in the NHL, they have actually done a good job over this small sample, leaving Buffalo and St. Louis scoreless, and Pittsburgh scoring on just 1 of their 4 power plays. In all, they went 9/10 on the penalty kill, far above their 75.5% kill rate.
However, it’s truly been the power play that has cratered any chance at winning these games. The Flyers received 10 power plays over their three games, but scored on none of them. Again, this goes back to the high-end talent issue that has dated back for years. Now, without Claude Giroux backpacking the power play from keeping it from a total circus, it now sits dead last in the league, and has for some time now this season.
The Flyers have also gotten destroyed at 5v5, and they have not had a true starting goaltender in net over these last several games, which exploits their lack of two-way play across the board. The Flyers, and hockey players in general, play with a lot more confidence when they know they have a guy in net that can make those kinds of saves you need for a game to not completely snowball.
Everything’s bigger in Texas, including their hockey team, who is bigger and better than our Philadelphia Flyers in every category. Over their last 3 games, the Dallas Stars have scored 15 goals, or 5 goals per game. They’re simply scoring at will right now, and it’s not at the sacrifice of two-way play, only allowing 5 goals over 3 games, a 1.67 goals against average.
The Stars’ penalty kill has been just okay, honestly speaking. Their PK officially went 2/7, allowing power play goals to Arizona and Colorado. Their power play, though, has been lightning-hot. They scored at least one power play goal each game, going 5/14 in this small stretch.
Jason Robertson has lead the way with 10 points over his last 5 games, he’s eclipsed the 40-goal mark for the second year in a row, and now he has scored over 100 points in the NHL for the first time in his career.
PHI Record: 29-35-13, 71pts, 7th in Metropolitan
DAL Record: 44-23-10, 98 pts, 2nd in Central
Last Game PHI: 4/04/23, 4-2 L at St. Louis
Last Game DAL: 4/03/23 5-1 W vs. Nashville
When: 8:30pm ET
Where: American Airlines Arena, Dallas, TX
PHI Goalie: Carter Hart (21-21-10, .909 SV%, 2.90 GAA, 2 SO)
DAL Goalie: Jake Oettinger (33-11-11, .917 SV%, 2.47 GAA, 1 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#74 Owen Tippett – #49 Noah Cates – #11 Travis Konecny
#86 Joel Farabee – #48 Morgan Frost – #57 Wade Allison
#25 James van Riemsdyk – #21 Scott Laughton – #44 Nicolas Deslauriers
#13 Kevin Hayes – #58 Tanner Laczynski- #22 Brendan Lemieux
#9 Ivan Provorov – #45 Cam York
#6 Travis Sanheim – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
#24 Nick Seeler – #47 Ronnie Attard
#79 Carter Hart
#32 Felix Sandström
DAL Projected Lineup
#21 Jason Robertson – #91 Tyler Seguin – #16 Joe Pavelski
#14 Jamie Benn – #53 Wyatt Johnston – #63 Evgenii Dadonov
#18 Max Domi – #10 Ty Dellandrea – #25 Joel Kiviranta
#42 Fredrik Olofsson – #12 Radek Faksa- #11 Luke Glendening
#20 Ryan Suter – #4 Miro Heiskanen
#23 Esa Lindell – #2 Jani Hakanpää
#44 Thomas Harley – #6 Colin Miller
#29 Jake Oettinger
#41 Scott Wedgewood
PHI Injuries: Sean Couturier (back), Ryan Ellis (hip), Cam Atkinson (neck)
Scratched: Kieffer Bellows, Justin Braun, Tony DeAngelo
DAL Injuries: Mason Marchment (lower-body), Roope Hintz (undisclosed)
Scratched: Joel Hanley, Nils Lundkvist
News and Notes
– Flyers players on goal watch tonight are Travis Konecny (29) and Morgan Frost (19). If either score tonight, it will be the first time they hit the 20th and 30th goal marks in a full season at the NHL level.
– Tonight will mark Carter Hart’s 199th game in the NHL, giving him a chance to play in his 200th game either on Saturday against the Islanders or Sunday at home against the Bruins.
– James van Riemsdyk sits one goal shy of 300 in his NHL career entering tonight’s game. He scored goal 299 on Tuesday in St. Louis.
– I’ll just leave this one here:
Broadcast Info: TV – NBC Sports Philadelphia, Radio – 93.3 WMMR
