5 THINGS: Flyers @ Panthers

Playing the latter half of a Sunshine State back-to-back set, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (3-0-0) are in Sunrise, FL, on Wednesday to take on Paul Maurice's Florida Panthers (2-1-0). Game time at FLA Live Arena is 7:30 p.m. ET.

GAME NOTES
The game will be televised nationally on TNT. The local radio broadcast with Tim Saunders and Steve Coates on the call is on 97.5 The Fanatic with an online simulcast on
Flyers Radio 24/7.
This is the first of three meetings this season between the teams. The Flyers and Panthers will rematch at the Wells Fargo Center on Oct. 27 and March 21.
Here are five things to track in Wednesday's game.
1. Flyers Believing in Themselves.
Last season the Flyers only won five games (5-36-4) in which an opponent scored first. They've now won three this season. Philly did not win a single game during the 2021-22 season when they trailed by two goals at any point. They've now done it twice this season.
It goes without saying that it's far from ideal for a team to press its luck too far in trying to play comeback hockey. Nonetheless, it's a character-building victory when a team can go up against an elite opponent such as Tampa Bay, pick themselves up after trailing 2-0, and find a way to win.
On Tuesday, a Scott Laughton' rebound goal, a James van Riemsdyk power play deflection and Noah Cates' unassisted game-winner after forcing a Florida turnover in the slot provided the Flyers with the goal support Carter Hart needed to earn his first career win against Tampa Bay. Hart was sensational in stopping 37 of 39 shots.
There were other key contributions, too. The Fyers' defensive zone structure was solid despite the high volume of Tampa shots. The Flyers' defensemen -- Tony DeAngelo, Ivan Provorov (especially in the third period), Travis Sanheim, Egor Zamula, Justin Brauin and Nick Seeler -- did their part and the forwards provided support. Additionally, after the Flyers were utterly dominated by Tampa for the first nine minutes of the game, a Nicolas Deslauriers fight with Patrick Maroon seemed to draw the rest of the Flyers into the battle. The rest of the period was evenly played.
On the Flyers' first goal, Morgan Frost made a slick entry into the offensive zone and Zamula's shot produced a fat rebound into the bottom of the left circle. Laughton pounced and fired it home. The tying JVR tip-in came off a deflectable Kevin Hayes shot from high in the zone with DeAngelo getting the secondary helper.
The Flyers' game-winning goal sequence was the product of the previous shift. Hayes' line with Joel Farabee and Travis Konecny kept Tampa hemmed in its own zone and wore down the Bolts' players who got caught on the ice. Finally, Cates pressured Erik Cernak (1:09 shift) into a turnover, collected the puck and scored. In addition to Cernak, fellow defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (1:08) and forwards Brayden Point (1:26), Brandon Hagel (1:16) and Nikita Kucherov (1:08) were unable to get to the bench for a desperately needed line change.
2. Energy management is vital.
The Flyers barely worked on systems until the final eight days of training camp. Until then, they did lots and lots of skating. They'd have done even more conditioning skating but a high number of injuries to veteran players forced the coaching staff to keep the available players a little fresher to play in the exhibition games. Many of the young players in camp dressed in five of six games.
Why did Tortorella put his players through one of the NHL's most torturous training camps in terms of being extremely skating intensive? To prepare the Flyers conditioning-wise for situations such as the one they face in Sunrise.
Philadelphia is playing its third game in four nights, and the second game of a road back-to-back. The Panthers were idle on the schedule both on Sunday and Tuesday, giving them a fatigue-factor edge; something that Tortorella refuses to accept as an excuse if his team gets outskated.
The bottom line, however, is that the Flyers need to use their energy wisely. Playing comeback hockey, as they did against Vancouver on Sunday and Tampa on Tuesday, expends a lot of energy. Florida is a dangerous team with a lot of offensive firepower. In addition to puck discipline and avoiding preventable penalties, the Flyers must exhibit shift discipline, too, by not overstaying shifts or getting caught in bad changes.
3. Aggressive PK can be a double-edged sword.
As noted in Tuesday's 5 Things before the Tampa game, Flyers defense/ penalty killing coach Brad Shaw preaches an aggressive approach to the penalty kill with heavy strong-side pressure. Around the NHL, aggressive PKs tend to rule the roost nowadays because the league is filled with skilled opponents who can carve up a passive PK box.
There's one downside: If a cross-seam pass does get through, there's going to be an open man in scoring position. Hart had little to no chance to stop either of Steven Stamkos' two power play goals on Tuesday when the puck was delivered right in the veteran sniper's wheelhouse.
Prior to Tuesday, the Flyers had started the season with a 7-for-8 mark on the PK. The final kill in the Tampa game was a strong one.There's no need for the Flyers to tweak their approach. Not every opponent has the passing skill of Kucherov or Vladislav Namestnikov nor a comparable finisher to Stamkos. However, Florida is one such team that can make a PK look bad. Keeping them off the power play in the first place is the way to go.
4. Flyers Lines TBD
Tortorella did a lot of forward line juggling over the course of the latter 40 minutes of Tuesday's game. The team will not hold a morning skate in Sunrise on Wednesday, and the starting combinations against the Panthers are unclear as of this writing.
"We were flat," Tortorella said after Tuesday's win. "It wasn't a smart coaching move. It was throwing it against the wall and changing because I thought we were so flat. We'll see where it goes when we start our next game."
Tortorella and goaltending coach Kim Dillabaugh (to whom the head coach delegates the responsibility for selecting the next game's starter) have another decision to make: Keep running with the hot hand in light of Hart's excellent start to the season or give Felix Sandström his first start of the season in light of the team playing for the third time in four nights and a weekend back-to-back ahead.
With the line combos changing often --Laughton, for example, saw time at all three forward positions on Tuesday -- the combos below are an approximation of what the Flyers used for more than one or two shifts after the first period. They are very much subject to change, and could differ considerably at the start of the game in Sunrise:
86 Joel Farabee - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 49 Noah Cates - 57 Wade Allison
21 Scott Laughton - 48 Morgan Frost -17 Zack MacEwen
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 59 Jackson Cates - 58 Tanner Laczynski
9 Ivan Provorov - 77 Tony DeAngelo
6 Travis Sanheim - 61 Justin Braun
24 Nick Seeler - 54 Egor Zamula
79 Carter Hart
32 Felix Sandström
5. Behind Enemy Lines: Florida Panthers
A regular season juggernaut but a playoff disappointment in 2021-22, the Panthers have made some significant changes. Vteran Maurice is now the head coach. New arrivals include Matthew Tkachuk and Rudolfs Balcers, while the likes of former Flyers captain Claude Giroux (free agent departure to Ottawa), Jonathan Huberdeau (Tkachuk trade with Calgary) and defenseman McKenzie Weeger (Tkachuk trade) have left. In the meantime, the Panthers retain a strong holdover nucleus led by Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad. The Cats were the NHL's highest-scoring team last season.
The Panthers opened the season on a three-game road trip, playing the New York Islanders (3-1 win), Buffalo Sabres 4-3 win) and Boston Bruins (5-3 loss). Tkachuk and Colin White collected two goals and two assists apiece on the road trip. Sergei Bobrovsky started the first and third games with Spencer Knight getting the middle game in Buffalo. Wednesday's game against the Flyers marks Florida's regular season home opener.
In addition to Bobrovsky, the Panthers have two other former Flyers on the roster: veteran defenseman Radko Gudas and veteran forward Nick Cousins.
Ekblad exited the game in Boston during the second period and did not return for the third. With veteran defenseman Brandon Montour also dealing with an injury, the Panthers only had four defensemen and 16 total skaters available for the third period. Ekblad did not practice with the team on Tuesday. Maurice said Ekblad has a lower-body injury. The coach declined to speculate on Ekblad's status, saying only that there was no timetable as of Tuesday morning.