Flyers vs. Seattle Preview: The Kraken have been released on Broad Street
By Nick Butler
The Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken are set to have their first ever matchup at the Wells Fargo Center. This will be the fourth game for the Kraken on the season and the Flyers second. The Kraken have not yet had a home game and still have one more game ahead after playing in Philadelphia before finally going home.
Seattle Kraken
The Kraken have gotten a true taste of the NHL in every column of their record. They enter play tonight 1-1-1. They haven’t been as bad as a lot of experts have thought either. Their two loses have been heart breakers. Every game the Kraken have played have been a one goal game.
So far, the two ex-Penguins are leading the way for the Kraken, scoring wise, in Brandon Tanev and Jared McCann. Both have three points with Tanev with three goals and McCann with two goals and an assist. They will be two players to watch, along with their budding young sniper in Morgan Geekie and Ryan Donato who have been consistent for this team.
With that being said, Dave Hakstol is also set to make his return to Philadelphia tonight for the first time as a head coach since his firing back in December of 2018. He had been with the Maple Leafs coaching staff since. As head coach of the Flyers, Hakstol had a record of 134-101-42. This will be a very interesting coaching matchup tonight.
Projected Lineup
Schwartz – McCann – Eberle
Donskoi – Wennberg – Lind
Tanev – Geekie – Donato
Bastian – Sheahan – Appleton
Oleksiak – Larsson
Giordano – Soucy
Lauzon – Fleury
Gurbauer
Philadelphia Flyers
Tonight, the Flyers are coming into play 0-0-1 after their own heartbreak loss. After fighting back from a two goal deficit in the third period with under 2:20 to go, the Flyers went on to lose in the shootout. It was a hard fought game where they were able to steal a point in what may come back to help them further down the road.
The Flyers overall should not be upset about this loss. Yes, the team of last season showed up in that second period where they took a decent amount of penalties and left Hart out to dry because of such, but the goals they let in were all based around puck luck. The second goal hit off the boards which then hit Hart’s skate. The third was at the end of a 5-on-3 advantage for the Canucks where the puck went off the skate of Chiasson and trickled in. The fourth was a little more on Hart but there can also be some blame put on Sanheim. Hart seemed to have lost the puck when it hit his equipment and J.T. Miller was there to tap it in while Sanheim let him walk in.
The offensive side of the puck was electric. The Flyers completely dominated the first period and begin to reestablish themselves back into the hockey game. There were goals by Joel Farabee, Cam Atkinson, Travis Konecny and the absolute beauty from Claude Giroux off a bank pass from Sean Couturier. This was a much different looking offense that not only carried the puck but seemed to get away from the dump and chase.
There is a lot of good that the Flyers can bring into tonight’s matchup and as Alain Vigneault said, “We only played our division last year and there have been a lot of change in the league. Just like when we played Vancouver, it was basically a new team also”.
This is going to be a lot of firsts for the Flyers playing teams they haven’t seen for almost two years and need to keep that mindset going into this one. This is just another game against another team in the NHL. We will also see Nick Seeler once again as Rasmus Ristolainen will not be ready to dress ahead of this tilt.
Projected Lineup
Giroux – Couturier – Konecny
Farabee – Brassard – Atkinson
Lindblom – Laughton – van Riemsdyk
Willman – Thompson – Aube-Kubel
Provorov – Ellis
Sanheim – Braun
Yandle – Seeler
Hart
Where, When, and How to Watch
Time: 7 PM EST
Location: Wells Fargo Center
TV Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Radio Broadcast: 97.5 The Fanatic
Live Stream: Fubo TV
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