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Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers (0-5-3) are in the Michigan on Thursday to play Todd McLellan’s Detroit Red Wings (1-3-2). The Flyers enter this game coming off their best overall performance of the young season, although Philly had to settle for one point in a 3-2 (2-1) shootout loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday in Philly.
On Tuesday, third period goals from Christian Dvorak (2nd) and Trevor Zegras (1st) propelled the Flyers to a 2-2 tie after trailing by two goals entering the third period. Unfortunately, Marvel Michkov was the lone Flyer to convert his opportunity in the five-round shootout.
Detroit enters this match coming off a 0-0 tie through 65 minutes that turned into a shootout loss in Montreal on Saturday and then a 5-4 overtime home loss to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday..
Projected Goalie Matchup: TBD
Flyers: Dan Vladar (0- 3-1, 4.21 GAA, .875 SV%) or Joseph Woll (0-2-2, 2.95 GAA, .914 SV%)
Red Wings: John Gibson (1-3-1, 3.76 GAA, .863 SV%) or Daniil Tarasov (1-0-1, 0.66 GAA, .974 SV%)
Flyers scoring leaders
Points
Christian Dvorak — 3
Trevor Zegras — 3
Travis Sanheim — 3
Travis Konecny — 3
Matvei Michkov — 2
Sean Couturier — 2
Owen Tippett — 2
Nick Seeler -2
Goals
Matvei Michkov — 2
Christian Dvorak — 2
Tyson Foerster — 1
Porter Martone — 1
Trevor Zegras — 1
Owen Tippett – 1
Travis Sanheim — 1
Rasmus Ristolainen — 1
Assists
Travis Konency — 3
Trevor Zegras — 2
Denver Barkey — 2
Sean Couturier — 2
Nick Seeler — 2
Four players — 1
Where to Watch
Time: 7:30 p.m. EDT
Venue: Little Caesars Arena
Television networks: ESPN+, HULU, and DISNEY — streaming only
Radio: 97.5 The Fanatic
Flyers Injury Report
The Flyers hope to get some healthy players back in upcoming days. However, Cam York will miss his fourth game while Rasmus Ristolainen will miss his fifth. Neither defenseman made the trip to Detroit. Meanwhile, young defensemen Oliver Bonk and David Jiricek have stepped into the starting lineup.
Additionally, the injured Travis Konecny is still tied for the team scoring with three points (0g, 3a) despite missing the past three games. Michkov and Christian Dvorak are the only Philadelphia players with more than one goal on the season to date.
Lastly, Nikita Grebenkin (back surgery) is sidelined for at least four months from October
Potential Flyers Lineup (Tuesday starters)
Porter Martone – Noah Cates – Matvei Michkov
Trevor Zegras – Sean Couturier – Owen Tippett
Denver Barkey – Christian Dvorak – Tyson Foerster
Michael Bunting – Jack Studnicka – Noel Acciari
Travis Sanheim – Oliver Bonk
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
Simon Benoit – David Jiricek
Joseph Woll
Dan Vladar
PP1: Drysdale, Dvorak, Michkov, Tippett, Barkey
PP2: Jiricek, Zegras, Foerster, Martone, Bunting
PP1: Jiricek, Foerster, Barkey, Martone, Michkov
PP2: Drysdale, Zegras, Dvorak, Bunting, Tippett
Available: Garrett Wilson
Team Toyota Flyers Spotlight: Still defending too often
The Seattle game marked Philadelphia’s best performance of the season. However, that’s all relative. Certainly, there were bright spots. Trevor Zegras clearly had his best performance so far. He was an offensive and emotional catalyst. On defense, rookie Oliver Bonk improved markedly on Tuesday from his struggles against Carolina. Dan Vladar also had his best game of the season.
Nevertheless, there are still major areas of needed improvement.
Flyers outchanced again
The Flyers get outchanced in most games. That’s a disturbing fact, Ig shows no sign of significant change.
Even against Seattle, the Flyers gave up 13 high-danger scoring chances across all situations. That’s a big improvement from previous games. However, the Flyers themselves generated a paltry nine high-danger chances across 65 minutes. Overall chances were even (28-28), per Natural Stat Trick.
One key factor: Once the Flyers rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the third period, they almost seemed to be playing for OT.
Later, they had to kill a needless too many men on the ice penalty in overtime. Vladar made four saves on high-danger chances just to get the game a shootout. Earlier, over the final 10 minutes of regulation, the Flyers generated no high-danger chances.
How much of this was the players being skittish? Some of it, perhaps. But Tocchet and his staff also seemed to be coaching to get the game to overtime. There’s no other explanation for the under-use of Michkov in the latter part of the game. No, he didn’t have a stellar performance. Neither did the lower end of the lineup.
Yes, the Flyers spent too much time defending in crunch time. Zone starts dictate shift assignments. That’s true. However, it’s equally true that process itself gets teams to these ice positions (and shift assignments) in the first place. The veteran “process players” have been inadequate so far. Maybe Michael Bunting or Noel Acciari will start winning more battles than they have so far. Fellow veteran Carl Grundstrom ended up back in the AHL for some of the same reasons. They don’t need to score but they’d better help you put your offensive players in position to succeed.
It’s a fair and objective observation Tocchet remains reluctant to trust Michkov in particular. Ditto Alex Bump before his AHL demotion. Meanwhile, the same goes for Martone.
Players need coaching, especially young players. But when the checkers fail to help the scorers start in more advantageous ice, it’s fair to question why the ineffective players continue to take such regular turns in the shift rotation.
Flyers force themselves into comeback mode
Last season, even as the Flyers compiled 98 points, they had to play from behind far too often. They played to a 1-0 lead in only one-third of their games.
Leaguewide, the team that scored first won about two-thirds of the time. However, among playoff teams, the winning percentage improved to about 75 percent when scoring first. The Flyers resiliency was a virtue. Nevertheless, comeback hockey is not a sustainable model to win games.
So far this season, the Flyers have had a very tough schedule. Detroit is the first opponent who has also struggled heading into the match. Meanwhile, the Flyers have yielded the first goal in seven of eight games so far. That’s been a major problem, even though the Flyers twice game away with regulation ties after trailing first.
However, this number stares you right in the face: in first periods, the Flyers have been outscored by a 7-2 margin. That’s put the team in deep trouble fast. Slow starts were a big problem last year, too. Unfortunately, Philadelphia has also been outscored in the second (10-4) and third (11-4) period. It doesn’t take a math wizard to realize why the Flyers enter this game still winless.
60th Anniversary: Today in Flyers History
The Legion of Doom ran roughshod over the Edmonton Oilers at the Spectrum on October 15, 1995. Mikael Renberg had an especially memorable day.
In the morning, he signed a multi-year contract extension. Back then, the Collective Bargaining Agreement allowed teams to cancel remaining contract term and replace it with a higher contract immediately. The Flyers replaced Renberg’s NHL minimum contract with an immediate four-year extension. The deal was worth $6.4 million overall, including $1.1 million for the 1995-96 season. Previously, he earned $150,00 (the NHL minimum).
That night the Flyers skated to a dominant 7-1 victory against the Oilers. Renberg led the way with three points (2g, 1a). All three points came on the power play. In fact, every LOD member scored in this game. Eric Lindros had a power play goal and a shorthanded assist (Rod Brind’Amour scored). John LeClair notched a power play goal and three power play assists.
Overall, the Flyers went 4-for-7 on the power play and 7-for-8 on the penalty kill.
As the special teams numbers suggest, referee Dave Jackson had a very busy night. The game quickly turned very feisty and chippy. Most notably, Shawn Antoski got the better of future Flyers defenseman Luke Richardson in a memorable fight.
Ron Hextall made 17 saves to earn the win in goal.
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