After a tough Black Friday loss to the New York Rangers, the Philadelphia Flyers (10-9-1) are making their second trip to Long Island this week. They will face off against the New York Islanders (8-6-5), who handed the Flyers a 3-2 loss on Wednesday night.
Yesterday began as poorly as the Flyers and John Tortorella could have expected. The Rangers — who now sit eight points above the Flyers in the standings — got off to a hot start and scored two goals within two minutes. Mika Zibanejad continued to be a thorn in the side as he scored the first and the final goals for the Rangers.
Chris Kreider scored the game-winning goal 1:53 into the game. His goal came off a face-off won by the Flyers as Travis Sanheim turned over the puck in the defensive zone, setting up an easy scoring chance. Sean Couturier scored the Flyers’ lone goal in the second period, deflecting the puck past the dominant Igor Shesterkin.
The Flyers have now lost two in a row and will look to turn things around against a familiar foe.
New York Islanders
Hosting tonight’s clash, the Islanders are winners of three straight games — one of which came against the Flyers. Most recently, they defeated the Ottawa Senators 5-3 last night. Entering the holiday week, the Islanders struggled before putting some wins together. Lane Lambert offered some insight into his team’s turnaround:
“When we weren’t winning I said we were playing well and we felt as though the wins would start coming if we continued to play well. The challenge was not to get discouraged. And I thought our guys did a great job of that. They played hard every game and I thought tonight was no exception.”
Lane Lambert 11/24/2023
Anders Lee scored three goals in his last four games, pounding Carter Hart at the post to get the Islanders on the board first on Wednesday. Lee looks to extend his scoring streak to three games, meanwhile extending his team’s winning streak to four games.
“We’ve gutted it out these last few weeks. We didn’t get the results so much a little bit ago, but we’ve stuck with the process, stuck with our gameplan, our style, our relentlessness to push through it rather than deviate, try something different, guys on their own page; we haven’t done that at all. Now that we’ve broken through the last few, it’s starting to come a little more naturally, and that’s what it’s like when you start to feel good about how everyone’s doing.”
Anders Lee; 11/24/2023
Here’s the tentative lineup for the New York Islanders:
Barzal-Horvat-Holmstrom
Engvall-Nelson-Palmieri
Lee-Pageau-Wahlstrom
Fasching-Cizikas-Clutterbuck
Mayfield-Dobson
Romanov-Pulock
Bolduc-Aho
Sorokin
(Varlamov)
Philadelphia Flyers
A tough Metropolitan Division is catching up to the Flyers, who dropped consecutive losses to rival opponents. They need to earn crucial points back. In their previous two games, they outshot opponents 73-44. Philadelphia is creating chances but fails to find the back of the net.
The powerplay continued to sputter. On the man advantage, the Flyers went 0/6. Tortorella chose not to comment on the powerplay troubles in his postgame press conference, but Sanheim discussed his view on the issue after the game:
“They’re a pretty good penalty kill. We had a few looks, but I think we just gotta be more straightforward, generating shots, get to the net to start outworking penalty kills like we were before.”
Travis Sanheim 11/24/2023
Currently, the Flyers’ powerplay ranks 29th in the NHL, converting at a 10.3% rate. It is the sore thumb that needs to be cured. The Islanders are wounded and carry the 31st-ranked penalty kill in the NHL.
Here’s the tentative lineup for the Philadelphia Flyers:
Foerster-Couturier-Atkinson
Tippett-Frost-Konecny
Farabee-Poehling-Laughton
Deslauriers-Cates-Hathaway
York-Sanheim
Seeler-Walker
Staal-Ristolainen
Ersson
(Hart)
Place Your Bets (via DraftKings)
Philadelphia Flyers (+130)
New York Islanders (-155)
Sean Couturier over .5pt (-130)
Anders Lee anytime goal (+310)
Game Information
The Philadelphia Flyers visit the New York Islanders at the UBS Arena on Long Island. You can watch the telecast on NBC Sports Philadelphia. The radio broadcast is available on 93.3 WMMR. The puck drops at 7:30pm.
(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
