The Philadelphia Flyers roll into Music City tonight to face a familiar Nashville Predators squad. The Flyers hosted the Predators just back on March 17th, which was Claude Giroux’s 1000th NHL game. Nashville led for most of the third period but the Flyers rallied late in the game and Joel Farabee rammed home the go-ahead goal with 1:19 left to play that would stand as the game-winner in a thrilling 5-4 victory at Wells Fargo Center.
The Flyers are coming off a hard-fought but expected loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night in Denver. The first-place Avalanche fired home four first-period goals and never looked back as they sunk the Flyers 6-3 at Ball Arena. Just the night before, the Flyers had defeated the St. Louis Blues 5-2 in a valiant effort behind two Travis Konecny goals and Hayden Hodgson’s first NHL tally.
Nashville enters tonight coming off back-to-back 6-1 blowout losses on the road to the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights. The Predators are currently ahead of the Golden Knights and Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Wild Card race, with Nashville owning the first spot at 78 points while Vegas owns the second at 76, and Dallas is the first club on the Western bubble at 75. They need as many precious points as they can to stay afloat.
PHI Record: 18-30-11, 47 pts, 8th in Metropolitan
NSH Record: 35-21-4, 74 pts, 4th in Central
When: 6:00PM ET
Where: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN
PHI Goalie: Martin Jones (8-12-3, .903 SV%, 3.30 GAA, 0 SO)
NSH Goalie: Juuse Saros (31-20-3, .921 SV%, 2.55 GAA, 3 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#25 James van Riemsdyk – #86 Joel Farabee – #89 Cam Atkinson
#23 Oskar Lindblom – #13 Kevin Hayes – #11 Travis Konecny
#42 Hayden Hodgson – #48 Morgan Frost – #74 Owen Tippett
#71 Max Willman – #38 Patrick Brown – #17 Zack MacEwen
#9 Ivan Provorov – #45 Cam York
#6 Travis Sanheim – #70 Rasmus Ristolainen
#3 Keith Yandle – #8 Kevin Connauton
#79 Carter Hart
#35 Martin Jones
NSH Projected Lineup
#9 Filip Forsberg – #92 Ryan Johansen – #95 Matt Duchene
#28 Eeli Tolvanen – #64 Mikael Granlund – #11 Luke Kunin
#13 Yakov Trenin – #10 Colton Sissons – #84 Tanner Jeannot
#21 Nick Cousins – #47 Michael McCarron – #26 Phillip Tomasino
#59 Roman Josi – #45 Alexandre Carrier
#14 Mattias Ekholm – #3 Jérémy Lauzon
#17 Ben Harpur – #7 Matt Tennyson
#74 Juuse Saros
#33 David Rittich
Last Game PHI: 3/25/22, 6-3 L at Colorado
Last Game NSH: 3/24/22, 6-1 L at Vegas
News and Notes
– This is the second and final meeting of the season between the two teams. As mentioned before, they just played on March 17th in Philadelphia in a 5-4 Flyers victory in Claude Giroux’s 1000th game.
– This will be the 30th all-time meeting between the Flyers and Predators, with Philadelphia owning a 14-7-3-5 advantage in the series.
– Joel Farabee enters tonight on a four-game point streak, with two goals and four assists in that span. Farabee has been taking plenty of reps at center as well and has thrived so far in the early going of this trial.
Broadcast Info: NBC Sports Philadelphia+, ESPN+, 97.5 The Fanatic
Injuries:
PHI – Ryan Ellis (lower-body), Nate Thompson (shoulder), Sean Couturier (back), Scott Laughton (concussion)
NSH – Dante Fabbro (upper-body), Matt Benning (upper-body), Mark Borowiecki (upper-body)
