Just in time for the holidays, it’s the first Penguin/Flyer game of the season!
Who: Philadelphia Flyers (15-15-4, 34 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (15-15-5, 35 points, 4th place Metropolitan Division)
When: 7:00 p.m. ET
How to Watch: Broadcast on SportsNet Pittsburgh and NBC Sports Phialdelphia for the local markets, streaming on ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: The NHL mandates no team activities from December 24-26, so the Pens will be settling in for the holiday after tonight. Then they’ll prep and fly on Friday for their next game after tonight, on the road Saturday (Dec. 28th) on Long Island. Those same Islanders follow the Pens back to the ‘Burgh for a rematch on Sunday Dec. 29th.
Opponent Track: The Flyers have been all over the map in waves; they ended November on a three-game winning streak only to drop their first three games in December. They followed that up by winning the next two before losing three more after that. They would hope that downward trend is over after their latest game to break their latest losing streak, a 5-4 OT victory over Columbus on Saturday night.
Season Series: This is the first of four PIT/PHI games this season. They’ll meet next in Philly on Feb. 8th, and then close things out with each other on a home-and-home Feb 25th and 27th (the first leg being in Eastern PA, the second being back at home).
Hidden Stat: As far as all-time best plus/minus against the Flyers for a defenseman, Kris Letang (+37) is tied with some little-known old timer named Bobby Orr for first all-time. That any good? (Stick tap, Pens PR).
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Owen Tippett - Scott Laughton - Travis Konecny
Joel Farabee - Morgan Frost - Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster - Noah Cates - Bobby Brink
Olle Lycksell - Ryan Poehling - Garnet Hathaway
DEFENSEMEN
Travis Sanheim / Cam York
Nick Seeler / Rasmus Ristolainen
Jamie Drysdale / Egor Zamula
Goalies: Samuel Ersson, Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov
Potential Scratches: Sean Couturier (day-to-day injury), Erik Johnson
IR: Ryan Ellis, Nicolas Deslauriers
—Lycksell was returned to the AHL yesterday, a day after he was called up. So it looks like Couturier may be good to go for tonight.
—Tippett scored the OT GWG last game, a four-point contest. Konecny (3A), Frost (2G), Cates and Foerster (1G+1A a piece) were the other multi-point scorers and are the hottest scorers as of late for the team.
(via hockeydb)
—Is the goalie of the future even on the team right now? The Flyers are carrying three goalies, have given them all opportunities to run with it. All are young and relatively inexperienced (Ersson at 70 career NHL contests has by far the most) but none have shown any immediate signs of looking like a promising or sure-fire factor in the future. And thus the endless quest in Philadelphia for viable goaltending looks like it will continue.
It’s funny (but in like a scary way, not a ha-ha way) how similar the Pens and Flyers are. The records as of today are a whisker away from being identical (15-15-5 vs 15-15-4). Going deeper, there are more similarities in style. Pittsburgh has had a better power play than Philadelphia and a slightly better penalty kill so far, but other than that they have a whole lot in common, like maybe too close for comfort here.
Pretty bizarre stuff that these two rivals end up looking like this, and looking pretty darn close to one another. The Pens will have to hope their total offensive shot attempt generation can do some damage on the Flyers’ defensive and goal situation. But, then again, the Pens are coming off a zero goal and 12 SOG effort against New Jersey from Saturday, so who knows how reliable their game might be at this point, especially on the brink of an upcoming holiday break.
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Michael Bunting - Evgeni Malkin - Cody Glass
Anthony Beauvillier - Drew O’Connor - Philip Tomasino
Matt Nieto - Blake Lizotte - Noel Acciari
DEFENSEMEN
Owen Pickering ? / Kris Letang
Matt Grzelcyk / Erik Karlsson
P.O. Joseph / Ryan Shea
Goalies: Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic
Potential Scratches: Jesse Puljujarvi, Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves
IR: Marcus Pettersson
—The Pens were off the ice yesterday, so we’ll have to wait and see what comes out today about Pickering’s availability if he is unavailable to play tonight. Presumably the team would have to play Graves and go with the ghastly left side of Grzelcyk/Joseph/Graves in some form. Granted, the Pens’ left side was never going to look anything close to good while Marcus Pettersson is on the shelf, but boy oh boy what they’re left with is harsh to see.
—This fourth line hasn’t changed up for a while, through wins and losses and the various ups and downs along the way. For better or worse it seems to be one that the coaching staff is fairly enamored and impressed with.
From Pens PR:
The Penguins enter tomorrow’s game with points in each of their last eight home games against the Philadelphia Flyers, going 6-0-2 dating back to Mar. 6, 2021. Their eight-game home point streak is their third longest such streak against any one opponent:
Longest Active Home Point Streaks, PIT
Opponent Streak Record
Columbus 15 15-0-0
Detroit 10 7-0-3
Philadelphia 8 6-0-2
Vancouver 6 4-0-2The Penguins have outscored the Flyers by a 32-22 margin during this streak, and have scored three or more goals in seven of the eight games. This season, Pittsburgh is 13-3-2 when scoring three-plus times in a game.
Sidney Crosby’s three assist game on Tuesday night put him at 1,030 all-time. That’s significant due to Mario Lemieux sitting at 1,033 assists (12th place all-time in NHL history).
This category marks the first major boxcar stat that Crosby will surpass Lemieux in (Sid is currently 89 goals and 92 points behind Mario in those). Obligatory reference that Crosby is coming up on 400 more games than Lemieux.
Crosby has 74 assists in 87 (!!) games against PHI, the most any player has recorded against the franchise. So who knows, maybe Christmas can come early if it’s a hot night and Crosby can make a run at tying Lemieux as soon as tonight.
