Flyers set for a Wednesday night tilt with the Sabres
By Nick Butler
The Philadelphia Flyers and Buffalo Sabres look to tonight as big games for both clubs. The Flyers currently sit outside the playoff standings with a 17-13-4 record with 38 points. They come in tonight with two games in hand on the Bruins who were out for a week with covid protocols. The Bruins sit in fourth place with 41 points. Leaving with two points tonight will be huge.
On the other side of the ice, we have the Sabres who have gone 0-16-2 over their last 18 games. A win tonight will break that, of course, but losing will ultimately climb them higher on the list of consecutive losses with 19 straight.
The Flyers come into tonight having comeback in the third period against the Sabres in an impressive effort by the veterans. Big goals by Hayes, Giroux and Couturier helped tie the game. Claude Giroux was a huge impact player with a goal and an assist and an impressive shift in OT that led to a beauty by Ivan Provorov.
In what could have been a very bad situation for the Flyers, it ended up becoming a character win and showed a lot of what this team is truly capable of. When hearing Claude in his post game interview and hearing that Laughton and Braun were two voices in the locker room that were calling other players out, that shows how tight this group of guys is.
With the Nolan Patrick, Oskar Lindblom and Joel Farabee being benched in the third, it will be interesting to see how they bounce back tonight. Every game is important from here on out and everyone needs to play their best hockey on every shift if this team wants to make the playoffs.
Flyers Projected Lineup
The Flyers called up Carsen Twarynski and Connor Bunnaman ahead of the game. With that move, Vigneault decided to allow Nolan Patrick and Oskar Lindblom to rest. The two will not be in the lineup. Sam Morin and Alex Lyon were recalled again as well.
Shayne Gostisbehere was sent to the taxi squad so he will not be available for this game. Erik Gustafsson will be paired with Morin as Vigneault went into a lengthy decision on why the team decided to make these moves.
Claude Giroux – Sean Couturier – Jakub Voracek
James van Riemsdyk – Kevin Hayes – Travis Konecny
Carsen Twarynski – Connor Bunnaman – Joel Farabee
Michael Raffl – Scott Laughton – Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Ivan Provorov – Justin Braun
Travis Sanheim – Philippe Myers
Samuel Morin – Erik Gustafsson
Brian Elliott
Alex Lyon