UPDATE: STARTING LINEUPS
Flyers
86 Joel Farabee - 21 Scott Laughton - 71 Tyson Foerster
27 Noah Cates - 25 Ryan Poehling - 19 Garnet Hathaway
74 Owen Tippett - 48 Morgan Frost - 11 Travis Konecny
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 14 Sean Couturier - 89 Cam Atkinson
8 Cam York - 6 Travis Sanheim
5 Egor Zamula - 18 Marc Staal
50 Adam Ginning - 23 Ronnie Attard
33 Samuel Ersson
[32 Felix Sandström]
Panthers
Vladimir Tarasenko - Aleksander Barkov - Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe - Sam Bennett - Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen - Anton Lundell - Evan Rodrigues
Nick Cousins - Kevin Stenlund -Ryan Lomberg
Gustav Forsling - Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola - Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Dmitry Kulikov
Sergei Bobrovsky
[Anthony Stolarz]
Game 64 Preview: Flyers @ Panthers
The Philadelphia Flyers (32-23-8) are in Sunrise on Thursday to visit the Florida Panthers (43-16-4). Game time at Amerant Bank Arena is 7:00 p.m. ET.
The Panthers bring a six-game winning streak and nine wins in their last 10 games into this game. The Flyers are 4-4-2 in their last 10 games.
Travis Konecny was a full participant in Wednesday's practice at the FTC. He stopped short of saying he's a go to play on Thursday but did say he feels a lot better and is close to ready. Scott Laughton (illness) and Cam York (maintenance day) did not practice on Wednesday.
Practice time will be scarce over the remainder of March. In the remaining 22 days in March (including Thursday's gameday in Sunrise), the Flyers play 12 games.
On Wednesday, the Flyers traded impending unrestricted free agent defenseman Sean Walker to the Colorado Avalanche for a (conditional) 2025 first-round Draft pick. The Flyers also acquired veteran center Ryan Johansen from the Avs, with the Nashville Predators retaining 50 percent of his $8 million cap hit for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons and Philly taking the other half. The Flyers immediately placed Johansen on waivers and will learn on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. ET if he clears.
If Johansen clears, it appears more likely that he will be assigned to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms than kept on the NHL roster. As a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Johansen self-described his relationship with John Tortorella in very similar terms to how Kevin Hayes later assessed his own time with Tortorella in Philadelphia: open disagreement over hockey issues but no personal animosity.
Longtime Avalanche reporter Adrian Dater
tweeted on Wednesday that team sources told him that Johansen had become a divisive plater in the Avalanche locker room, although he admitted that he had not yet obtained Johansen's point of view.
From a hockey standpoint, there are still some things that Johansen can offer. A three-time 25-plus goal scorer (most recently in 2021-22 for Nashville) and three-time 40-plus assist goal center, Johansen has both size and skill. His offensive game has shown signs of decline the last couple years, but he is still a good faceoff man. Johansen has always been an average to slighty below-average defensive center but, in his prime, produced enough offense (five seasons with 60 or more points) to compensate. He's never had the hoped-for consistency or evolved into the potential franchise player he was touted to be in the early 2010. His best years were in Columbus (under Todd Richards before Tortorella's arrival) and on a stacked Nashville team under Peter Laviolette.
If there is even a smattering of truth to Dater's report that Johansen was part of locker room tensions in his lone season in Colorado, it's unlikely that the Flyers would invite the player into their own massively improved locker room atmosphere. Moreover, neither Johansen nor Tortorella disputed that they weren't on the same page hockey wise in Columbus -- seven years ago, with Johansen hitting what figured to be his offensive prime. Both the eye test and the numbers in Colorado showed that Johansen was having problems pulling his weight defensively. With his offensive role diminishing, the Avs were willing to eat the maximum 50 percent of his cap hit in the deal with Philly and upgrade their offer to the Flyers for Walker to a 2025 first-rounder (next year's Draft is believed to be deeper than the 2024 crop).
In the meantime, with Walker gone and with Nick Seeler (new four-year contract at a $2.7 million cap hit) in IR with a foot injury sustained in blocking a shot in Monday's game, the Flyers are shorthanded on the blueline. Ronnie Attard and Adam Ginning are each slated to play in their respective first NHL game of the 2023-24 season. Samuel Ersson is the expected starting goalie in Florida.
The Flyers will not hold a morning skate on Thursday. Lineups for both the Flyers and Panthers (who will hold a morning skate at their practice facility in Fort Lauderdale) will be added to the gameday bog as an update when available.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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