It’s only been one game thus far, but the Flyers made a statement in their season opening victory against the Devils. They aren’t going to be pushed around anymore. And while the Devils do have some young talent on their roster, Philadelphia will be facing a team that has plenty of star power up and down the lineup.
The Vancouver Canucks are in town as they’re looking for their first win of the season after dropping a tough one of the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night. The Flyers will have their hands full with the likes of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Vasily Podkolzin, and Quinn Hughes.
Vancouver is a team with “unfinished business” as they barely missed out on a playoff spot this season so they’ll be looking for a fight this evening. The Flyers will need to keep proving people wrong and this is a good team to do it against.
Philadelphia Flyers
One of the biggest notes from the Flyers win over the Devils was the impact of the team’s youth. Players like Wade Allison, Morgan Frost and Tanner Laczynski had their hands all over it. The latter two scored, with Frost having two goals himself. Laczynski was this close to his first NHL goal, instead settling for two assists in just his seventh career game.
Travis Konecny also scored twice in the win, showing off the shot he talked about working on during the off-season. While the offense did show up when the team needed it most, they were still prone to sitting back and letting the other team take over. After Konecny scored to put the Flyers up 4-1 in the third, it was all New Jersey for most of the period.
Carter Hart was the biggest reason that the team was able to skate away with the win when all was said and done. After not having played in the preseason, it would’ve been expected for their to be some rust. It didn’t look that way as the game went on, though. Now with the game under his belt, Hart will certainly have his hands full again against Vancouver.
The Flyers made a few moves ahead of this game as Hayden Hodgson was waived and Jackson Cates was called up. But with both Owen Tippett and Cam Atkinson out, the Flyers needed to make another move. That came in the form of Olle Lycksell who will be making his NHL debut.
Projected Lineup
Scott Laughton – Kevin Hayes – Travis Konecny
James van Riemsdyk – Morgan Frost – Tanner Laczynski
Joel Farabee – Noah Cates – Wade Allison
Nicolas Deslauriers – Jackson Cates – Olle Lycksell
Ivan Provorov – Tony DeAngelo
Travis Sanheim – Justin Braun
Egor Zamula – Nick Seeler
Carter Hart
Vancouver Canucks
While the Canucks come to town for the first time this season, Mike Yeo will be returning to the team that he was the interim head coach for much of last season. He was hired as an assistant coach by Vancouver this season. Brad Shaw, who is now an assistant with the Flyers, was previously will the Canucks.
For Bruce Boudreau, he is looking for his 600th victory in the NHL. The Canucks came close to giving him that on opening night. They were up 3-0 on the Oilers before surrendering five unanswered goals. Rookie Andrei Kuzmenko scored his first NHL goal in the loss.
The Canucks will almost certainly be led by Miller and Pettersson again this season. Miller had a career high 32 goals and 99 points last year. He signed a seven-year extension to remain in Vancouver. Pettersson also posted career highs with 32 goals and 68 points last season.
Podkolzin is entering his second year in the NHL, coming off an impressive first season. He should have a bigger role on the Canucks after posting 14 goals and 26 points last year. Speaking of bigger roles, Hughes is always a dangerous threat from the point. He is another player who had a career season, breaking the franchise’s assist record back at the end of April. He finished with eight goals and 68 points.
Projected Lineup
Tanner Pearson – J.T. Miller – Brock Boeser
Andrei Kuzmenko – Elias Pettersson – Nils Hoglander
Vasily Podkolzin – Bo Horvat – Conor Garland
Dakota Joshua – Nils Aman – Curtis Lazar
Quinn Hughes – Luke Schenn
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Tucker Poolman
Riley Stillman – Kyle Burroughs
Thatcher Demko
Where, When and How to Watch/Listen
Time: 4 PM
Where: Wells Fargo Center
Watch: NBCSP
Radio: 97.5 FM
Live Stream: Fubo Tv
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