Flyers back home for bout with struggling Sharks
Fresh off a victory over the Nashville Predators, the Flyers are back home to take on a struggling San Jose Sharks team. While Nashville had lost four straight coming into last night, the Sharks have lost six of their opening seven games this season.
Resiliency has been the name of the game for the Flyers this season. But last night they had a lead and held it for the entire game. The Predators scored a power-play goal late in the third period to break Carter Hart’s shutout.
This is the second back-to-back of the week for the Flyers. They split the one against Tampa and Florida earlier in the week, the win coming in the first game. This is yet another test of conditioning for Philadelphia. Early results show that the tough training camp has seemed to help keep their legs going late in games.
Philadelphia Flyers
Record: 4-1-0 (8 points, 2nd in Metro)
The Flyers and the Penguins are the only two Metro teams with four wins in their first five games. While they aren’t scoring upwards of six goals a game like Pittsburgh, the Flyers are showing early on that they can hang in what is typically a tough division. It’s early in the season still, but that has been a good sign thus far.
It is clear that this team has bought into John Tortorella’s system and are playing for each other. They are willing to stand up for one another, whether that’s dropping the gloves or stepping in front of shots. They want to do whatever it takes to win. And that’s exactly what has been missing in recent years.
It also doesn’t hurt that they are getting almost perfect goaltending from Carter Hart. Four games into his season, Hart has a 1.75 GAA and a .949 SV%. That’s 137 saves on 144 shots. He was minutes away from a shutout against the Predators and has only given up seven goals thus far. It’s unlikely that Hart will be able to sustain these numbers for an entire season, but if he’s on his game, the Flyers can ride him for as long as he’ll let them.
But it’ll be Felix Sandstrom in net for Philadelphia. Sandstrom is still looking for his first NHL win and this Sharks team is a good one to have him in net for. He played well in his first game of the season against the Panthers but did let in a few bad goals. San Jose has only scored three goals one time this season and that came in their only win of the season. So if the Flyers can keep things tidy in front of Sandstrom, he could finally get into the win column in his seventh career game.
Projected Lineup
Joel Farabee – Kevin Hayes – Travis Konecny
Scott Laughton – Noah Cates – Wade Allison
James van Riemsdyk – Morgan Frost – Zack MacEwen
Nicolas Deslauriers – Lukas Sedlak – Tanner Laczynski
Ivan Provorov – Tony DeAngelo
Travis Sanheim – Justin Braun
Nick Seeler – Egor Zamula
Felix Sandstrom
San Jose Sharks
Record: 1-6-0 (2 points, 8th in Pacific)
Nothing has seemed to go right for the Sharks to start the season. They opened the season with four straight losses, two of the coming to the Predators in the Global Series. They finally won their first game of the year in an upset overtime victory against the New York Rangers. Three out of the four regulation goals came in the second period with none being scored in the third.
It was Erik Karlsson who gave the Sharks their first win just 49 seconds into overtime. And he’s led the way for San Jose early on. He leads the team in goals (2), assists (3), and points (5). Those numbers alone should show you how much the Sharks offense has struggled.
The Flyers will see a familiar face back at the Wells Fargo Center as Oskar Lindblom will face Philadelphia for the first time in his career. He has three points, all assists, in six games this season. He is sure to get quite the ovation upon his return.
Projected Lineup
Timo Meier- Tomas Hertl – Alexander Barbanov
Nick Bonino – Logan Couture – Luke Kunin
Evgeny Svechnikov – Nico Sturm – Kevin Labanc
Oskar Lindblom – Steven Lorentz – Matt Nieto
Scott Harrington – Erik Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Matt Benning
Mario Ferraro – Radim Simek
James Reimer
When, Where and How to Watch
When: 7 PM
Where: Wells Fargo Center
Watch: NBCSP
Listen: 97.5 FM
Live Stream: Fubo Tv
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