Tonight will be the third time in the last four games that John Tortorella will not be behind the bench, as the Philadelphia Flyers take on the St. Louis Blues as they continue their four-game road trip.
Assistant coach Rocky Thompson will act as the Flyers’ bench boss tonight after Brad Shaw did the same in Thursday’s and Saturday’s losses against Ottawa and Buffalo, before Tortorella took his usual spot in Sunday’s loss to Pittsburgh.
Thompson’s previous head coaching experience includes two seasons with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires and three seasons with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. Thompson led the Wolves to the 2019 Calder Cup Finals, where they lost in five games to the Charlotte Checkers.
In Thompson’s NHL head coaching debut, Samuel Ersson will lead the Flyers onto the ice and get the start tonight. Ersson started Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh, where he saved 27 of 30 Penguins shots in the 4-2 defeat. He still maintains a 6-2-0 record at the NHL level this season despite an .899 SV% and 3.07 GAA in 11 appearances.
Ersson’s start still means Carter Hart is out as well. The team designated him as day-to-day with his lower-body injury and it is not expected to be season-ending as the Flyers only having 6 games remaining on the schedule.
As for the Blues, they have been eliminated from playoff contention like the Flyers, and they will also be icing a battered lineup tonight.
Pavel Buchnevich will miss his third straight game and backup goalie Thomas Greiss underwent a procedure on Monday. Marco Scandella has also been ruled out for the season and the Blues are already without Robert Bortuzzo. The silver lining is they could potentially get Robert Thomas back in the lineup. He has been designated as a game-time decision after missing the past three games.
PHI Record: 29-34-13, 71 pts, 7th in Metropolitan
STL Record: 35-35-7, 77 pts, 6th in Central
Last Game PHI: 4/2/23, 4-2 L at Pittsburgh
Last Game STL: 4/2/23, 4-3 SOL vs. Boston
When: 8:00pm ET
Where: Enterprise Center, St. Louis, MO
PHI Goalie: Samuel Ersson (6-2-0, .899 SV%, 3.07 GAA, 1 SO)
STL Goalie: Jordan Binnington (25-25-6, .891 SV%, 3.39 GAA, 2 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#86 Joel Farabee – #49 Noah Cates – #57 Wade Allison
#11 Travis Konecny – #48 Morgan Frost – #74 Owen Tippett
#25 James van Riemsdyk – #21 Scott Laughton – #13 Kevin Hayes
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #22 Brendan Lemieux
#9 Ivan Provorov – #45 Cam York
#6 Travis Sanheim – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen*
#24 Nick Seeler – #77 Tony DeAngelo
#47 Ronnie Attard
#33 Samuel Ersson
#32 Felix Sandström
STL Projected Lineup
#20 Brandon Saad – #10 Brayden Schenn – #25 Jordan Kyrou
#63 Jake Neighbours – #42 Kasperi Kapanen – #15 Jakub Vrána
#79 Sammy Blais – #22 Logan Brown – #17 Josh Leivo
#13 Alexey Toropchenko – #26 Nathan Walker – #9 Tyler Pitlick
#4 Nick Leddy – #55 Colton Parayko
#47 Torey Krug – #72 Justin Faulk
#43 Calle Rosén – #51 Matthew Kessel
#50 Jordan Binnington
#60 Vadim Zherenko
PHI Injuries: Cam Atkinson (neck), Sean Couturier (back), Ryan Ellis (hip), Carter Hart (lower-body), Rasmus Ristolainen (upper-body, game-time decision)
Scratched: Kieffer Bellows, Tanner Laczynski, Justin Braun
STL Injuries: Pavel Buchnevich (upper-body), Marco Scandella (lower-body), Thomas Greiss (lower-body), Robert Bortuzzo (upper-body), Robert Thomas (lower-body, game-time decision)
Scratched: None
News and Notes
– Rasmus Ristolainen missed Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh with an upper-body injury, but he could draw back into the lineup tonight next to his usual partner in Travis Sanheim. If he is able to go, the Flyers will run an 11/7 lineup, but if he is unable to play, expect Ronnie Attard to fill his spot.
– Attard will make his season debut after being recalled from AHL Lehigh Valley. Attard has recorded 11 goals and 19 assists for 30 points in 64 games with the Phantoms in his first full professional season.
– Rocky Thompson and Craig Berube being behind the benches means tonight will feature a game with two First Nations head coaches, something only seen a handful of times in the NHL before.
– The last time these teams squared off, Felix Sandström stopped 27 of 28 St. Louis shots en route to his first NHL victory in a 5-1 Flyers win back on November 8th, 2022 in Philadelphia.
– Yesterday, April 3rd, marked 10 years since the Flyers traded Michael Leighton and a 2015 third- round pick to Columbus for Steve Mason. Mason went on to record 104 victories as a Flyer from 2013 to 2017, the third-most in franchise history.
– Since returning from injury against Buffalo on Saturday, Travis Konecny has scored in consecutive games and is riding a personal 5-game point streak and 3-game goal streak.
Broadcast Info: TV – NBC Sports Philadelphia, Radio – 93.3 WMMR
