After Wednesday's devastating loss to the Utah Mammoth, the Philadelphia Flyers have one stop left on their road trip: Denver, where they'll face the best team in the league: the Colorado Avalanche.
It's important to note, however, that "best" does not mean "hottest"; that honor would go to the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are 13-0-1 of late, though you could make a case for the seemingly unbeatable Buffalo Sabres as well. The Avalanche, meanwhile, are 5-3-2 in their last 10 games.
They still sit atop the league with 77 points, of course, but they've not looked nearly as dominant as they did earlier in the season, in large part due to injuries to key players like Gabriel Landeskog and Devon Toews. With the Avalanche stumbling, the Flyers have an opportunity to take advantage.
Three Storylines
One dumb penalty after another
In their loss to Utah, the Flyers thankfully cleaned up some of their penalties--but it was still three minors and a fighting major. One of those minors, a roughing penalty to Noah Juulsen, gave the Mammoth enough juice to mount the comeback and win in overtime. Sticking up for your teammates is important, but doing so at inopportune times is a bad look. The Flyers need to stay out of the box.
Vladar nearing a return
While it doesn't appear that Dan Vladar will get the start tonight, the good news is he's practicing with his teammates. If he's good to go for the Flyers' next game on Monday, then this should be Sam Ersson's last game as the de facto starter in Vladar's absence.
While Ersson had his ups and downs over the last couple of weeks, he was arguably the Flyers' best player in the win over Vegas and not at all the reason the Flyers lost to Utah. If Ersson wants to make his case to be here long term, a strong performance against an offensive juggernaut like the Avs would go a long way.
New defense pairs, questionable forward lines
It appears Rick Tocchet is changing up his lines, reuniting Jamie Drysdale and Nick Seeler and sticking Emil Andrae with Noah Juulsen. That seems pretty standard--what is surprising is that it appears Nikita Grebenkin will be sitting out tonight's game. After Garnet Hathaway's game-losing gaffe against Utah, one could've assumed he'd be a likely scratch to try and reset, but it appears the young Grebenkin will be in the press box instead.