Interim head coach Mike Yeo will take on his first road trip as the Flyers are heading to Newark to take on the New Jersey Devils. Philadelphia comes in with a nine-game losing streak that saw their head coach, Alain Vigneault, and assistant head coach, Michel Therrien, fired.
The Devils are on a four-game losing streak, their last win coming against the Flyers the last time these two teams played just over a week ago. After battling back from a 1-0 and 2-1 deficit, things fell apart in the third period. The Devils fired off three goals, one of which being an empty netter, to take the 5-2 victory. That was Philadelphia’s sixth loss of this nine-game losing streak.
Aside from Monday night’s offensive outburst, the Flyers had scored two goals in the two previous games, a 4-1 loss to the Rangers and a 7-1 thrashing to the Lightning.
Philadelphia Flyers
Record: 8-11-4 (20 points, 7th in Metro)
Despite the fact that the Flyers losing streak continued on Monday night, there were some positives to take away from the game. For the first time since October 27th, Philadelphia scored more than three goals. It came against the Avalanche as well. Now, they ended up losing 7-5 and shouldn’t necessarily be happy with what they accomplished.
Claude Giroux, as he’s done time and time again, tried to put this team on his back. He scored twice, once at even strength and once on the power play. Cam Atkinson has four points in his last five games and has goals in back-to-back games. Morgan Frost is looking more confident as each game passes by. He has three points in his six games thus far.
But the Flyers have not been getting contributions from some of their other top players. After 12 points in his first 10 games, Sean Couturier has just three points in his last 13 games. He’s been struggling offensively and defensively as well, something that isn’t usually something we see with him. Whether he is nursing some kind of injury or just struggling as most players are, the Flyers need their top center to perform better than he has been.
There have been numerous struggles on the defensive end as well. Nick Seeler, while performing adequately during his time, has played far more than likely intended because of the injury to Ryan Ellis. Keith Yandle’s struggles recently have been extremely noticeable as well. Ivan Provorov has also struggled in his own sense as well. Justin Braun has been the one constant on the backend that hasn’t seen many struggles. He’s been arguably their best player on defense.
Carter Hart will get the start in net as some cracks in his game have begun to show. Whether that be the defense in front of him falling apart or just the losing streak finally getting to him, pucks have been getting by him more than they had been before. So getting him back on track will be another key to breaking out of this funk.
Projected Lineup
Lindblom – Couturier – Konecny
Laughton – Hayes – Atkinson
Frost – Giroux – van Riemsdyk
Brassard – Brown – MacEwen
Provorov – Braun
Sanheim – Ristolainen
Yandle – Seeler
Hart
New Jersey Devils
Record: 9-9-5 (23 points, 6th in Metro)
Philadelphia isn’t the only team that has struggled recently. Since facing the Flyers on November 28th, the Devils have lost their last four games. They scored just two goals in three of the losses. Though in the game in which they scored four goals, they gave up eight in return. So things haven’t been going swimmingly for them either.
Things seemed to trend back in the right direction during their last game, though, against the Senators. While they dropped that one 3-2 in the shootout, the overall feeling seemed to be that they had played much better than their previous few games.
This time around, the Flyers will need to pay more attention to Dougie Hamilton. He scored and registered an assist, as well as firing 10 shots on net in the victory. In his first season with the Devils, Hamilton has six goals and 15 points in 20 games. He has registered five points in his last five games.
Jesper Bratt has been having himself a strong season as well. He leads the team in assists (14) and points (20) and is third in goals (6). He registered three points against the Flyers in their last matchup and has six points in his last five games.
Mackenzie Blackwood was in net against Philadelphia in the previous game and is expected to tend the crease once again. He has given up just two goals in each of his last two games, though the latter one was a relief appearance. The 24-year-old has appeared in 12 games thus far and has a 3.07 GAA to go along with a .907 SV%. Blackwood seems to put up strong numbers whenever he has faced the Flyers, though.
Projected Lineup
Zacha – Hischier – Bratt
Johnsson – Hughes – Sharangovich
Vesey – Mercer – Tatar
Kuokkanen – McLeod – Bastian
Graves – Hamilton
Siegenthaler – Severson
Smith – Subban
Blackwood
When, Where, and How to Watch
Time: 7:00 PM
Where: Prudential Center
TV Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Radio Broadcast: 93.3 WMMR
Live Stream: Fubo TV
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