Philadelphia enters tonight’s game coming off a 2-game weekend road-trip sweep of the Blue Jackets and Rangers. The Flyers look to make it 3 in a row tonight against a struggling Canadiens team.
Montreal enters tonight’s game losing 5 straight games. The Canadiens look to end a 5-game skid against a surging Flyers team.
Flyers Lineup (Projected 2/19)
Giroux – Couturier – Konecny
Voracek – Patrick – Weal
Lindblom – Laughton – Raffl
Lehtera – Filppula – Weise
Provorov – Gostisbehere
Hagg – MacDonald
Manning – Gudas
Starter – Lyon
Backup – Mrazek
Scratches
20 – Leier
39 – Alt
17 – Simmonds
So Now What?
When Brian Elliott went down last week to injury, GM Ron Hextall said he was fine with going with Michal Neuvirth and Alex Lyon. Well, now a week later, 1 of those 2 is hurt too. And, its not the rookie.
For the 3rd time this season, Michal Neuvirth is going to miss time due to an injury. However, this time Brian Elliott isn’t there to save the Flyers in Neuvirth’s absence. No. Instead its Alex Lyon.
Alex Lyon, a rookie who made his NHL debut on Jan 31st in relief of Neuvirth, seems the most likely person to get he starts with both Flyers goalies out.
Or is he?
That is a question many of us are trying to figure out. According to the Detroit Free Press, Hextall declined an offer of a 3rd round pick for Red Wings Petr Mrazek. Well, that was before Neuvirth went down to injury. I wonder what the price is now.
Well, I guess we got that answer pretty quickly too. The Flyers acquired goalie Petr Mrazek from Detroit late last night. Mrazek is a proven NHL caliber goalie, who will see the workload for the Flyers over the remaining 23 games. Check out Jamey Baskow’s article for all the details.
Depth Scoring
A question early in the season was where was the depth scoring. The Flyers went a period of two weeks without any forward scoring other than Voracek, Giroux, or Couturier.
Now, its just who is going to score next. After Sunday’s game, where 7 different Flyers scored, the depth scoring is present in a big way.
For the season, 10 Flyers have 10 or more goals. 8 are forwards and 2 are defenseman.
With the emergence of the depth scoring, the Flyers are an extremely tough team to play against with scoring coming from all 4 lines.
However, even more depth scoring is on the way. Before all the madness last night, the Flyers recalled Oskar Lindblom. Lindblom, who has done nothing but impressive with the Phantoms, deserved the call-up. However, after GM Ron Hextall’s conference call for Petr Mrazek, he slipped and said he may have been recalled because of an injury. We will have to see who he was talking about.
Playoffs
With the weekend sweep, the Flyers widen their playoff buffer to 6 points. However, that could grow
As I have stated before, games in hand play a huge part to a teams playoffs hopes. At the moment, the Flyers hold games in hand on 2 of the 3 teams fighting for the last playoff spot.
Now, if we had a healthy goalie I would have no problem saying this. But, since we don’t it is a little hard. However, the Flyers are just 5 points out of the division lead with a little over a month left.
With an easier March schedule on their hands, could they recover from a 10-game losing streak and last in the Metro all the way to the top and win the Metro Division?
Well, we will have to wait and see.
Game 60 Montreal Canadiens Philadelphia PA NBCSports Philadelphia 7:00pm
Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports
