The Flyers look to sweep the Pittsburgh Penguins in tonight’s series finale at the Wells Fargo Center.
Coming off a strong 6-3 victory in Wednesday’s season opener, the Flyers will try to leave the Penguins winless after two games. Both the Flyers and Penguins are projected to have no lineup changes, meaning Carter Hart will get his second start and Tristan Jarry will try to shake off a disappointing effort for the Penguins.
Keys for the Flyers
- Keep the stars from shining: The Flyers will attempt to repeat the efforts made to contain Crosby and Malkin. Crosby scored a fluky powerplay goal after a careless Hart clearing attempt. Malkin was continually stymied and was thoroughly frustrated by the time the game ended. Look for Malkin to release his frustration early.
- Hart must maintain poise and focus: Hart was very solid in net during game one, aside from the bad clear. He will need to be just as good for Flyers to keep the Pens at bay. Hart will need to be prepared to contend with more traffic than he saw in game one.
- Prove Power play to be potent: After a dismal power play run in the playoffs, the Flyers man advantage looked pretty good in the opener with JVR and Nolan Patrick scoring goals. Given how chippy things got as the game progressed my guess there will be ample power play opportunities. The flyers are very hard to beat when the powerplay is functioning at a high level.
Who to Watch
- Joel Farabee, the NHL’s leading scorer, was on fire and is leading the Flyers with 4 points. Farabee will try to continue his torrid pace.
- Erik Gustafsson collected two powerplay assists and was a net positive in Wednesday’s game. Despite a couple of defensive wobbles, Flyers’ fans should be please how he has played thus far. The powerplay looked very potent with Gustafsson on the back end and should get more opportunities tonight.
- Scott Laughton spent most of his night across from Malkin or Crosby. To his credit, he did not allow either of the Penguins superstars to score at even strength. Laughton will be asked to shutdown the pair again tonight
- Travis Sanheim had a seemingly quiet night based on the box score in just over 20 minutes. Sanheim was on the receiving end of at least two dirty hits, a butt end then a cross check, both to the face.
The game begins at 7:00pm EST and can be watched locally on NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Flyers Projected Lineup:
Forwards
23 Oskar Lindblom – 14 Sean Couturier – 11 Travis Konecny
28 Claude Giroux – 13 Kevin Hayes – 86 Joel Farabee
25 James van Riemsdyk – 19 Nolan Patrick – 93 Jakub Voracek
12 Michael Raffl- 21 Scott Laughton- 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Defense
9 Ivan Provorov – 61 Justin Braun
6 Travis Sanheim – 5 Phil Myers
8 Robert Hägg – 56 Erik Gustafsson
Goaltender
79 Carter Hart (PROJECTED STARTER)
37 Brian Elliott **Backup