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Flyers Gameday: 3/6/19 vs WSH

March 6, 2019, 10:07 AM ET [260 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Game 67 Preview: FLYERS vs CAPITALS

Interim head coach Scott Gordon's Philadelphia Flyers (32-26-8) are home on Wednesday to take on Todd Reirden's Washington Capitals (38-21-7). Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:30 p.m. ET.

The game will be nationally televised on NBCSN. The radio broadcast can be found on 97.5 FM The Fanatic with an online simulcast at FlyersRadio247.com.

This is the second of four meetings between the Metro Division teams this season, and the first of two in Philadelphia. The clubs will rematch on March 14 in Philadelphia before the season series concludes in Washington on the afternoon of March 24.

On Jan. 8 at the Capital One Center, the defending Stanley Cup champion Caps dealt the Flyers a 5-3 setback in Mike McKenna's debut in goal for Philly.

The Flyers played a good first period but were unable to take a lead to intermission (tied 1-1). The second period started out decently but then the wheels fell off as it progressed and the team found itself in a three-goal hole (4-1) at the second intermission. In the third period, the Flyers had three power play opportunities fall by the wayside with a chance to still make a game of it. Then Philly made a late comeback bid that went for naught. Washington scored two empty-net goals -- one overturned on a challenge for an offside, the latter of which came in the final few ticks of the clock and counted -- to make it a 5-3 final.

Jakub Vrana scored even-strength and power play goals for Washington after assisting on the game's first goal back in the first period. Tom Wilson opened the scoring and later lost a would-be empty netter to an offside challenge. T.J. Oshie tallied an even strength deflection goal and added a shorthanded empty netter at 19:57 of the third period. Pheonix Copley got the win in goal for Washington, stopping 37 of 40 shots.

Vrana's goal on an attempted cross-crease pass that actually went off McKenna and into the net was a rough one for the team, turning a 3-1 game into a 4-1 game. Overall, McKenna stopped 22 of 26 shots. The journeyman netminder wasn't the prime cause of the loss.

Special teams hurt the Flyers in this game. They went 3-for-4 on the penalty kill and the Vrana goal was a fluky one -- but ill-timed, especially because it was yet another goal the Flyers have allowed this season when they gave up one less than two minutes earlier.

The power play was what really hurt the Flyers in this game. They went 0-for-5, and several of the man advantages saw them struggle to get set up at all. When they did get set up, shots would miss the net or passes would get intercepted and cleared.

The Flyers got a goal and two assists from Jakub Voracek, but he also came out on the wrong end of some crucial puck battles. The Voracek goal was scored from the left slot and set up by a nice feed from Oskar Lindblom after Lindblom intercepted a Washington pass in the neutral zone.

The since-traded Wayne Simmonds scored on a second effort opportunity off a Voracek feed to cut the gap to 4-2 at 16:33 of the third period. After the overturned offside empty net bid by Wilson, Claude Giroux found the net on a one-timer to momentarily make it 4-3 but with just six seconds left on the clock. Voracek and Sean Couturier got assists on the two goals.

Flyers Outlook

The Flyers are 17-4-2 over their last 23 games. The team has claimed points in eight of their last 10 games (7-2-1). However, the team is eight points (seven standings points plus a ROW tiebreaker disadvantage) below the playoff cutoff line with only 16 games remaining.

Philly was idle on Tuesday night, while the four teams they are chasing in the standings were all in action. Unfortunately for the Flyers, they lost ground on all of them. Carolina lost in overtime to gain one point, while Pittsburgh, Montreal and Columbus all won their games to gain two.

Nolan Patrick (laceration) is questionable for Wednesday's game. If he can play, the starting lineup will look different than Tuesday's practice lines. It will depend on how he feels. Officially, he is day-to-day. Jakub Voracek (lower body) is unavailable for Wednesday's game. The team hopes to have him back for practice on Thursday.

The Flyers enter this game coming off a gut-check 4-1 road win over the New York Islanders on Sunday afternoon.

The Flyers were without key right winger Jakub Voracek (lower-body injury, underwent MRI) and had to dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Early in the game, they were down to 10 forwards when Nolan Patrick suffered an ear laceration when struck by the puck while he was down along the ice. He did not return to the game.

Early in the third period, with the Flyers leading 4-0, Travis Konecny took exception to a high hit along the boards by New York's Jordan Eberle. Konecny received seven minutes worth penalties (two for cross-checking, five for fighting), temporarily leaving Philly down to nine forwards. The Flyers killed the minor penalty but, shortly thereafter, center Scott Laughton received a high sticking minor. Thus, for a two-minute stretch, Philly only had only six forwards on the bench apart from the two on the ice who were killing the penalty at a given time.

To their credit, the Flyers rolled with the punches throughout the day. They found ways to get the better of an Islanders team that came in with the NHL's lowest team GAA and tied for first place in the Metro Division.

The Flyers got goals from Konecny (21st) and Travis Sanheim (9th) as they took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission. The lead doubled in the middle frame on goals by Scott Laughton (4th) and Sean Couturier (27th). Philly did a good overall shutdown job in the third period despite New York getting one goal back in the final five minutes.

Flyers team captain Claude Giroux hit the 50-assist milestone for the fifth season in his NHL career, chipping in a pair of helpers (50th and 51st) on the afternoon. The Flyers also received one assist apiece from Radko Gudas (13th of the season, 100th career NHL point), Robert Hägg (12th), Michael Raffl (10th) and Oskar Lindblom (14th).' Ivan Provorov did not record a point but was a game-high plus-four and had two shots on goal and two blocks in 23:46 of ice time.

In net, Brian Elliott was outstanding. He made quite a few difficult saves and was on top of his angles and rebounds throughout most of the day. Elliott took second-star honors with 29 saves on 30 shots. He will get the start in net against the Capitals.

Capitals Outlook

Winners of four straight games, the Capitals are tied atop the Metro Division with 83 points. Both clubs have played the same number of games (66), have identical records (38-21-7), and are in a dead heat in the ROW tiebreaker category (34). Head-to-head record would be the secondary tiebreaker if the season ended today.

The Caps enter this game coming off a 3-2 road shootout win on Sunday over the New York Rangers. The game had a bizarre, anti-climactic ending, as Alex Ovechkin was automatically awarded the game-winning goal in the fourth round of the shootout because Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev, who had committed too soon to the ice, threw his stick at the puck in desperation to prevent the shot attempt. Carl Hagelin and Andre Burakovsky scored in regulation for the Capitals. T.J. Oshie and Nicklas Bäckström scored earlier in the shootout before the Ovechkin winner.

Washington, 10-3-1 over its last 14 games, has a healthy lineup at present; or at least all of their primary starters are available.


Projected Lines (Subject to change)

FLYERS (Tuesday's practice lines, subject to change)

28 Claude Giroux - 19 Nolan Patrick - 23 Oskar Lindblom
12 Michael Raffl - 21 Scott Laughton - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 10 Corbin Knight - 38 Ryan Hartman
44 Phil Varone - 27 Justin Bailey

9 Ivan Provorov - 6 Travis Sanheim
53 Shayne Gostisbehere - 61 Phillipe Myers
8 Robert Hägg - 3 Radko Gudas
47 Andrew MacDonald

37 Brian Elliott
[33 Cam Talbot]

Scratches: 19 Nolan Patrick (laceration, game-day decision), 93 Jakub Voracek (lower body, day to day), 5 Sam Morin (healthy), 72 Carter Hart (lower body), 30 Michal Neuvirth (IR, lower body).

CAPITALS

8 Alex Ovechkin - 92 Evgeny Kuznetsov - 43 Tom Wilson
13 Jakub Vrana - 19 Nicklas Bäckström - 77 T.J. Oshie
65 Andre Burakovsky - 20 Lars Eller - 10 Brett Connolly
62 Carl Hagelin - 26 Nic Dowd - 72 Travis Boyd​

6 Michal Kempny - 74 John Carlson
9 Dmitri Orlov - 2 Matt Niskanen
44 Brooks Orpik - 3 Nick Jensen​

70 Brayden Holtby
[1 Pheonix Copley]

Scratches: 18 Chandler Stephenson (healthy), 23 Dmitrij Jaskin (healthy), 29 Christian Djoos (healthy).
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