Game 75 Preview: Flyers vs. Blackhawks
The Philadelphia Flyers (36-28-10) are home on Saturday to take on the Chicago Blackhawks (21-47-5). Game time at Wells Fargo Center is 7:00 p.m. EDT.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a frustrating 4-1 loss in Montreal on Thursday. At home this season, the Flyers are 19-15-3. The Blackhawks won back-to-back games before getting shut out, 2-0, in Ottawa on Thursday. Chicago is 6-29-1 on the road this season, compared to 15-18-4 at home.
Noah Cates, who missed Thursday's game in Montreal for personal reasons, is expected to return to the Flyers' lineup for this game. Samuel Ersson, backed up by Ivan Fedotov, is in goal for Philadelphia. Nick Seeler (IR, foot) is slated to return to the lineup.
Based off Saturday's morning skate, the Flyers third defense pair will either be a pairing of Adam Ginning and Egor Zamula or it'l be Marc Staal with Ronnie Attard. One pairing will start, the other will be scratched.
For an in-depth game preview, see today's Five Things on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com:
Click here.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change, will be updated)
Flyers
74 Owen Tippett - 48 Morgan Frost - 11 Travis Konecny
71 Tyson Foerster - 25 Ryan Poehling - 19 Garnet Hathaway
86 Joel Farabee - 21 Scott Laughton - 10 Bobby Brink
27 Noah Cates - 14 Sean Couturier - 62 Olle Lycksell
8 Cam York - 6 Travis Sanheim
24 Nick Seeler - 77 Erik Johnson
50 Adam Ginning - 5 Egor Zamula
18 Marc Staal - 23 Ronnie Attard
33 Samuel Ersson
[82 Ivan Fedotov]
Blackhawks
8 Ryan Donato - 98 Connor Bedard - 23 Philipp Kurashev
17 Nick Foligno - 90 Tyler Johnson - 11 Taylor Raddysh
58 MacKenzie Entwhistle - 89 Andreas Athanasiou - 27 Lukas Reichel
84 Landon Slaggert - 16 Jason Dickinson - 15 Joey Anderson
72 Alex Vlasic - 4 Seth Jones
55 Kevin Korchinski - 24 Jaycob Megna
44 Wyatt Kaiser - 25 Jarred Tinordi
34 Petr Mrazek
40 Arvid Söderblom
********
Phantoms Update
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (28-26-8) earned a 6-4 road win over the North Division leading Syracuse Crunch (36-22-6) at Upstate Medical University Arena (AKA the venerable Onondaga County War Memorial) on Friday night. That building has been a house of horrors for the Phantoms in recent years, but Ian Laperriere's club stepped up on Friday for a huge victory. The Phantoms remain one point ahead of the Springfield Thunderbirds for the final Calder Cup playoff spot in the Atlantic Division.
The difference on Friday's game: The Phantoms scored two shorthanded goals on the same first period penalty kill -- Jacob Gaucher (6th goal of the season) on a breakaway at 6:37 and the red-hot Adam Brooks (10th) into a wide-open net at 7:33 after Tanner Laczynski beat Crunch starting goaltender Hugo Ahlnefelt to a misplayed puck and got the puck to Brooks.
The Phantoms led the rest of the game, but it was anything but easy.
At 10:15 of the first period, on his way to a hat trick (16th, 17th and 18th goals of the season), Cooper Marody intercepted a puck in the offensive zone and sniped an unassisted goal into the net. Ahlnefelt (three goals allowed on five shots) was pulled. Matt Thompkins (17 saves on 19 shots) entered in relief.
Leading 3-0, the Phantoms were guilty of some loose coverage on a Cole Koepke goal (18th) that narrowed the gap to 3-1 at 16:41 of the second period.
The second period was pretty evenly played, but started a pattern that would continue for the rest of the night: The Phantoms would seem to take control, getting Syracuse on the ropes, only for the Crunch to counterattack and make the game too close for comfort.
At 5:24 of the second period, Ethan Samson sprung Marody on a breakaway. He finished it off nicely one-on-one against Thompkins for a 4-1 lead. The Phantoms were unable to score shortly thereafter on a power play. Former Flyers/Phantoms defenseman Philippe Myers saved his team a goal with a vital stop on what looked to be a sure goal.
The Phantoms had a 2-on-0 opportunity, which they were unable to finish. Play swung the other way, and Gabriel Fortier (12th, Myers with the primary assist) beat Cal Petersen (21 saves on 25 shots) to make it a 4-2 game. Things got very tight at 14:57 as Lucas Edmonds (8th) scored a power play goal to bring Syracuse back within 4-3.
Early in the third period, Phantoms defenseman Hunter McDonald made a key defensive play to break up a 2-on-1 rush for Syracuse with an opportunity to tie the game. On the next shift, Brendan Furry (6th) scored for Lehigh Valley to re-establish a two-goal lead. Evan Polei and Emil Andrae (27th assist of the season) earned the apples.
Over much of the ensuing play, the Phantoms seemed to have the game under control. However, a tense finish was set up by a marginal slashing penalty on Andrae (his second such minor of the game). The Crunch pulled Thompkins for an extra attacker.
On the 6-on-4, McDonald came up with a seemingly vital clearing play. However, before the penalty expired, Koepke (19th) scored his second goal of the game to cut the deficit to 5-4 at 18:36. Of the four goals that Petersen allowed, this one was the only tally that could potentially be described as stoppable: not easy, but not unstoppable.
Syracuse got the benefit of a very questionable icing ruling on a sequence where the speedy Furry seemed to win the footrace to the dot by a half stride. With Syracuse attacking 6-on-5, Laczynski made a key stop in the defensive zone and got the puck to Brooks. Brooks then sent it ahead to Marody, who scored into the empty net to seal a 6-4 win.
McDonald, who had to leave his AHL debut last Saturday due to a first-period injury, returned the lineup for this game. He made a very solid accounting for himself with several defensive stops, a couple of blocks, a few clean hits and a traditional plus-four (+4, -0) including being on the ice for the two shorthanded goals in the first period.
The Phantoms had to play the game one player short of a full lineup. Zayde Wisdom was injured in warmups (bleeding from his face) and was ruled out shortly before the opening faceoff. Defenseman Adam Karashik skated in warmups but did not dress for the game.
Recently struggling forward J.R. Avon, a healthy scratch in the Phantoms' last game, returned to the lineup on Friday. Normally a winger this season during his first pro campaign, Avon shifted to center for this game in Syracuse. Mired in a nearly season-long scuffle after showing a lot of promise as a rookie last year, Elliot Desnoyers moved from center to right wing for this game.
With the Springfield Thunderbirds (29-29-5) defeating the recently struggling Hartford Wolf Pack (30-24-9 but 1-7-2 in their last 10 games) on Friday night, the Phantoms maintained their one-point lead (with one game in hand) over Springfield for the final playoff spot in the Atlantic. On Saturday, the Phantoms are in Wilkes-Barre to play the W-B/S Penguins (32-22-9). Springfield is on the road against the Utica Comets (28-26-9).
Friday's starting lineup:
24 Adam Brooks - 9 Tanner Laczynski - 20 Cooper Marody
13 Brendan Furry - 22 Rhett Gardner - 27 Samu Tuomaala
17 Garret Wilson - 16 J.R. Avon - 91 Elliot Desnoyers
10 Evan Polei - 56 Jacob Gaucher - (rotation)
6 Emil Andrae - 2 Helge Grans
98 Victor Mete - 7 Louie Belpedio
19 Hunter McDonald - 5 Ethan Samson
40 Cal Petersen
[31 Parker Gahagen]
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