The Philadelphia Flyers (1-3-1) suffered a shutout loss to the Vancouver Canucks in the 2024-2025 home opener at the Wells Fargo Center. In hopes of redeeming themselves on home ice, they will face their first NHL Metropolitan Division opponent of the season, the Washington Capitals (3-1-0).
Presently, there are three teams without a regulation victory in the NHL. Unsurprisingly, each team ranks at the bottom of their respective divisions. Regarding that statistic, the Flyers are among the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks. If you were to dig deeper down that rabbit hole, the strength of schedule favors Philadelphia.
John Tortorella knows the franchise has to earn the respect of the NHL. Starting the season on a four-game tour of the NHL Pacific Division does not help, but it certainly is not an excuse. Overall, the quality of the opposition represents a 54.5% win percentage. The Flyers are not playing bad teams, but a 20% success rate is an underachievement. Comparably, the Capitals are winning 62.5% of the games on their schedule, and the opponents they encounter combine for a 68.4% win percentage.
“It’s no excuse. The National Hockey League works this way. When you have no respect in the league, as we do not, you get the schedule that you get. I don’t want to put all the blame on our home opener on that, but that’s a tough game for us. Having said that, I don’t think we’re dead on even in the games we’ve played prior. We’ve had some good minutes, but we’ve been very inconsistent just as far as the checking forward and the hardness of a game. Again, five games in, I’m sure a lot of coaches and teams are trying to find their identity too, but we just don’t have a lot of time. We need to get at it right away and get back to where our standard is.” – John Tortorella; 10/21/2024
Washington is playing at a higher level, and Philadelphia is the underdog.
When: 6:00pm ET
Where: Wells Fargo Center; Philadelphia, PA
Broadcast Info: ESPN; 97.5 The Fanatic
Last Game PHI: 10/19; 3-0 L vs. Vancouver
Last Game WSH: 10/19; 6-5 OTW at New Jersey
Philadelphia Flyers
The home-and-home with the Capitals means Sam Ersson will start for the Flyers. Additionally, Nick Seeler will make his season debut.
“He’s [Seeler] a good player. I think you get locked into just who he is; the emotion he brings, blocking shots, and all [of] that, but he’s a good player. I think a lot of people forget he plays against a lot of good people [on] the opposing teams, he’s a good partner for his other guy because he bails a lot of people out. He’s a good player.” – John Tortorella; 10/21/2024
There was not a morning skate. Yesterday, Philadelphia did practice with a shuffled lineup. Scott Laughton was not in the lineup with the expected arrival of a baby. While Laughton was away from the team, Nicolas Deslauriers entered the lineup with Noah Cates. Jett Luchanko was the extra forward at practice, and Tortorella spoke briefly about the rookie in the NHL to date:
“Just like everybody else, he [Luchanko] makes some really good plays; he’s made a lot of really good plays on his backhand. Good plays, [but] struggles at times. [He] Makes some really good defensive plays, [but] struggles at times. He’s eighteen, but I still like what he brings, and we’re going to keep on evaluating him and see where we go from there.” – John Tortorella; 10/21/2024
Erik Johnson will serve as the extra defenseman with Seeler healed.
Flyers Projected Lineup (per Jordan Hall)
#71 Tyson Foerster – #48 Morgan Frost – #11 Travis Konecny
#74 Owen Tippett – #25 Ryan Poehling – #39 Matvei Michkov
#86 Joel Farabee – #14 Sean Couturier – #10 Bobby Brink
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #27 Noah Cates – #19 Garnet Hathaway
#8 Cam York – #6 Travis Sanheim
#24 Nick Seeler – #9 Jamie Drysdale
#5 Egor Zamula – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
#33 Sam Ersson
(#82 Ivan Fedotov)
Capitals Projected Lineup (per Matt Barry)
#21 Aliaksei Protas – #17 Dylan Strome – #8 Alex Ovechkin
#24 Connor McMichael – #80 Pierre-Luc Dubois – #43 Tom Wilson
#13 Jakub Vrána – #29 Hendrix Lapierre – #88 Andrew Mangiapane
#22 Brandon Duhaime – #26 Nic Dowd – #16 Taylor Raddysh
#6 Jakob Chychrun – #74 John Carlson
#42 Martin Fehérváry – #52 Dylan McIlrath
#38 Rasmus Sandin – #57 Trevor van Riemsdyk
#79 Charlie Lindgren
(#48 Logan Thompson)
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