Playing the latter match of a home-and-home set, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (1-4-1) visit Spencer Carbery's Washington Capitals (4-1-0) on Wednesday. Game time at Capital One Arena is 7:00 p.m. EDT.
The game will be televised on TNT. The radio broadcast is on 93.3 WMMR with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
On Tuesday at Wells Fargo Center, the Capitals defeated the Flyers by a 4-1 score. Wednesday's rematch in DC is the second of four meetings this season between the teams. The teams will meet again on February 6 in Philadelphia before the season series concludes in Washington on March 20.
Here are five things to watch in Wednesday's game.
1. Turn the page quickly
The Flyers can ill-afford to chase the game again as they spent most of Tuesday's game doing. The Flyers generated just 18 shots on goal for the match. The Flyers need to put aside the issues that have contributed to the current five-game winless streak (0-4-1) since their opening night shootout win in Vancouver.
RIght now, the Flyers' are a frustrated team offensively. The power play was strong on the season-opening road trip but has not clicked in the last two games. Five-on-five play has been problematic in the early going, both from a structural standpoint and especially from an offensive output point of view.
The Flyers took some modest corrective steps on Tuesday from a 5-on-5 defensive standpoint. They did a better job of taking away the middle of the ice and not yielding many even strength chances.
Unfortunately, breakdowns on two Washington shorthanded goals in the first period by Nic Dowd and Andrew Mangiapane as well as a third-period 4-on-4 goal by John Carlson (originally credited to Dyan Strome) put the Flyers in chase-the-game mode anyway.
2. Better puck protection is a must
As Tuesday's game moved along, the Flyers progressively forced more and more "hope passes" into the slot with only Capitals players in the vicinity. This is a red flag for frustration and lack of connectedness and communication.
The Flyers were charged with 15 giveaways on Tuesday. Active sticks by the Caps also produced an additional 11 Flyers turnovers via takeaways credited to Washington players (three to Connor McMichael, who also had two assists and earned Second Star honors).
3. Too much of a good thing
One of the team's biggest strengths for the vast majority of last season, the Flyers' penalty kill has remained stout in the early going of the new season: 23-for-26 (88.5 percent), one shorthanded goal, just one 5-on-4 opposing power play goal plus one 5-on-3 and 4-on-3 apiece.
There is, however, a problem: the sheer volume of penalties the Flyers are taking. The Flyers rank last in the NHL so far in terms of avoiding penalties that leave the team shorthanded.
Doing so creates three obstacles that are tough to overcome even when the penalties themselves are being killed at an impressive rate:
- Excessive PK taxes and wears down the players on the penalty killing units both within the game.
- High-volume PK takes five-man units out of the flow of play at even strength and keeps offensive-minded players who are not part of the PK off the ice for long stretches.
- When the team is struggling in general to score, any opposing power play goal (whether 5-on-4, a two-man advantage, 4-on-3, etc.) makes the offensive problems stand out even more noticeably.
4. More lineup adjustments coming for Philly?
The Flyers have done a lot of line combination juggling in-game and starting lineup adjusting (apart from injury-related changes) so far this season. They've been looking for a spark of energy and cohesion but have not been able thus far to find much that has clicked.
There is no morning skate on Wednesday, so the starting combos may not be evident until pregame warmups. Will Tyson Foerster and/or Jett Luchanko re-enter the lineup after not dressing for Tuesday's game? Will Noah Cates and/or Nick Deslauriers dress again after respectively playing their second (Cates) and first (Deslauriers) game of the season in Tuesday's game?
5. Between the Pipes.
Tuesday's goalie matchup pitted Samuel Ersson against Charlie Lindgren. Ersson (25 saves on 29 shots) took the loss. Lindgren, as noted, saw just 18 shots for the game and stopped 17.
In today's NHL -- this was not the case in years past -- most teams will split their goaltending duties when there are back-to-back game days during a week. That's not a guarantee, however.
If both teams rotate their goalies for the second game of the home-and-home, Ivan Fedotov would oppose Washington's Logan Thompson on Wednesday.
