The Philadelphia Flyers will take on the Washington Capitals tonight at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. in the first meeting of the season between the two clubs. The Flyers come into the game 4th in the Metropolitan Division with a 5-2-2 record, while the Capitals are in third place in the division with a 5-1-4 record.
The Flyers are coming off a tough 3-2 overtime loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night. Travis Konecny stayed sizzling with a power play goal and Scott Laughton scored his second goal in two games in the effort. Carter Hart made 33 saves in the game, and he’ll get a rest tonight as Martin Jones will make his third start of the season for Philadelphia.
Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier share the team lead in total scoring with 11 points apiece as linemates. Cam Atkinson still leads all Flyers with 6 goals, thought he has not scored since November 27th at Edmonton.
Washington is coming off a hard-fought overtime loss to the surging Florida Panthers on Thursday night. The Capitals trailed 4-1 in the game with just under 25 minutes left in regulation, but were able to come back on tie the game almost seven minutes into the third period on Connor McMichael’s first NHL goal. The Panthers would still go on to win in overtime, but the Capitals earned an important point in the standings nonetheless.
The Capitals have only lost once in regulation throughout their first ten games of the year, and their offense has been firing on all cylinders so far. The Great Eight himself Alex Ovechkin leads Washington in goals, assists, and points entering tonight’s matchup, with 10-8-18 on his season resumé. Evgeni Kuznetsov ranks second behind Ovechkin in all those categories, posting 5 goals, 8 assists, and 13 points for Washington thus far. Noted pest Tom Wilson has 8 points to round out the Capitals’ top scorers.
Philadelphia will need their depth to step up for a matchup like this. The top line of Claude Giroux-Sean Couturier-Travis Konecny has looked fantastic, and the third line of Oskar Lindblöm-Scott Laughton-James van Riemsdyk has picked it up as of late and performed well. But the second line of Joel Farabee-Derick Brassard-Cam Atkinson has gone quiet in a flash.
Farabee has gone scoreless in his last six games, Atkinson in his last four, and Brassard hasn’t scored since the second game of the season against Seattle on a lucky bounce off a Kraken skate. That line will need to find their rhythm again and quickly if the Flyers want to really stand up to Washington tonight. With Kevin Hayes returning soon, hopefully that will provide a boost to the forward group.
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS PROJECTED LINEUP
#28 Claude Giroux – #14 Sean Couturier – #11 Travis Konecny
#86 Joel Farabee – #19 Derick Brassard – #89 Cam Atkinson
#23 Oskar Lindblöm – #21 Scott Laughton – #25 James van Riemsdyk
#44 Nate Thompson – #38 Patrick Brown – #17 Zack MacEwen
#9 Ivan Provorov – #61 Justin Braun
#6 Travis Sanheim – #70 Rasmus Ristolainen
#3 Keith Yandle – #24 Nick Seeler
#35 Martin Jones
WASHINGTON CAPITALS PROJECTED LINEUP
#8 Alex Ovechkin – #92 Evgeny Kuznetsov – #43 Tom Wilson
#29 Hendrix Lapierre – #20 Lars Eller – #10 Daniel Sprong
#62 Carl Hagelin – #26 Nic Dowd – #21 Garnet Hathaway
#73 Conor Sheary – #24 Connor McMichael – #49 Brett Leason
#42 Martin Fehervary – #74 John Carlson
#9 Dmitri Orlov – #3 Nick Jensen
#57 Trevor van Riemsdyk – #2 Justin Schultz
#41 Vitek Vanecek
