5 Things: Flyers @ Flames

Wrapping up a three-games-in-four-nights road trip through western Canada, Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (4-1-1) will face Darryl Sutter's Calgary Flames (5-1-1) on Saturday night. Game time at the Scotiabank Saddledome is 10:00 p.m. ET (NBCSP+, 93.3 WMMR).
This is the first of two meetings this season between the teams. They will rematch at the Wells Fargo Center on Nov 16 (Flyers Hall of Fame induction night for Paul Holmgren and Rick Tocchet).

Here are five things to watch in this game:
1. Gut-check game for the Flyers.
Once in a while, a team that is in the midst of a grueling travel schedule will catch on the schedule a rested home team. In this instance, there's no significant fatigue factor heading into the game.
The Flyers have hopscotched across western Canada this week. Meanwhile, the Flames are just coming off an undefeated record in a five-game trip through the eastern U.S. including three games in four nights over this week. Both the Flyers and Flames had an off-day on Friday.
However, this match is nevertheless a gut-check game for the Flyers. They've already clinched a winning road trip even if they lose in regulation in Calgary. by virtue of their back-to-back regulation victories in Edmonton on Wednesday and Vancouver on Thursday. The Flyers cannot let their guards down, even subconsciously, against a Calgary team that is off to an excellent start this season.
In each of the first two games of the trip, the Flyers have "shown up on time" with strong first periods that saw them take leads to the dressing room at intermission. Second periods have been hairy, and the Flyers have had to rely very heavily on their goaltenders to prevent them from entering the third period trailing.Third periods have been solid.
So far on the trip, it has worked. However, the Flyers would be well-advised to avoid any one period against the Flames that is nearly as lopsided as much of the second periods were in Edmonton and Vancouver. If that pattern continues, the Flames are capable of burning the Flyers.
2. Lineup changes for the Flyers?
Hometown boys Carter Hart in Edmonton and Martin Jones in Vancouver both had excellent performances in net. Wrapping up the road trip, Hart will get the call in Calgary.
Beyond that, it won't be known until Vigneault's pregame media availability whether there be any other changes to the lineup. Patrick Brown made his Flyers debut on Thursday, replacing Nicolas Aube-Kubel on fourth-line left wing. Will that arrangement hold in Calgary?
Flyers top-pairing defenseman Ryan Ellis has missed each of the last three games with a nagging lower-body injury. He officially remains day-to-day. Assuming that Ellis cannot return for the road trip finale, the lineup could look like this:
28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 11 Travis Konecny
86 Joel Farabee - 19 Derick Brassard - 89 Cam Atkinson
23 Oskar Lindblom - 21 Scott Laughton - 25 James van Riemsdyk
38 Patrick Brown or 62 NAK - 44 Nate Thompson - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 61 Justin Braun
6 Travis Sanheim - 70 Rasmus Ristolainen
3 Keith Yandle - 24 Nick Seeler
79 Carter Hart
[35 Martin Jones]
3. Puck possession, physicality and special teams.
From a puck-possession analytics standpoint, Calgary comes into his game with a statistical edge over the Flyers in terms of the puck-possession game.
The Flames enter Saturday ranked eighth in team Corsi (52.65 percent) and 12th in team Fenwick (51.00 percent) at 5-on-5. However, they are slightly in the red in terms of creating high-danger scoring chances and so-called expected goals (48.41 percent) despite being in the black in terms of overall scoring chance differentials at 5-on-5 (52.99 percent).
Calgary generates a lot of shots on goal, ranking third in the NHL at an average 35.3 per game. In terms of suppressing opposing team shots on net, the Flames rank 20th (31.7 shots per game on average).
The Flyers rank 30th in the NHL in team Corsi (46.41 percent) and 24th in team Fenwick (47.27 percent). They rank 24th in expected goal differential (46.94 percent share) and 21st in overall goal differential (47.92 percent).
Philly ranks 24th in shot-on-goal volume, generating an average 29.7 shots per game. The Flyers yield an average of 33.2 opposing shots on goal per game, ranking 25th.
The Flyers have been one of the NHL's best faceoff teams in recent years, led by Sean Couturier on left-circle draws and Claude Giroux on the right. That has not changed this season. Philadelphia enters this team ranked atop the NHL with a 56.6 percent faceoff winning percentage. Calgary ranks tied for 17th at 49.6 percent.
It should be noted that much of the Flyers negative overall puck-possession discrepancies stem from their one-bad-period-a-game tendency. There has been one period -- typically the second period -- in both games against Vancouver (1-0-1) and the single meetings with Boston (1-0-0), Florida (0-1-0) and Edmonton (1-0-0) where the Flyers struggle mightily on defensive zone exits and offensive zone entries. The other periods have either been roughly even or favored the Flyers.
Strictly from an eye-test standpoint, which is admittedly subjective, the Flyers are a more well-organized, more competitive and more structured team than they were last season. A season ago, they got off to a very good start record-wise despite poor underlying numbers despite poor underlying numbers.
Oddly enough, the team's underlying numbers minus save percentages, were actually better last season after the bottom dropped out in terms of goals against average and record-wise after February. In terms of old-fashioned observation, though, the Flyers' play in front of the goalies so far this season has been better overall, and the goalies have certainly been making most of the saves so far that they've had the chance to make.
Bottom line at 5-on-5: Both the Flames (16-8 goal differential) and Flyers (18-10 goal differential) have gotten the job done far. It's all about being opportunistic and bearing down at key junctures. It's not always about what the analytics say, especially not in small sample sizes.
For many years, both the Flames and Flyers had reputations for being punishing, physical teams. That hasn't been the case nearly as much in recent times but the Flyers are trying to re-establish some of that identity. The Flyers rank 9th in the NHL so far this season with an average 26.63 hits-per-60 minutes.
Calgary is in the middle of the pack, ranking 16th at 22.21 hits-per-60. However, opponents always have be alert when Matthew Tkachuk or veteran Milan Lucic are on the ice.
In terms of shot blocking, the Flyers rank 6th in the NHL with an average of 15.61 opposing shots blocked per 60 minutes of play. The team's 26-block performance in Edmonton on Wednesday helped push up the average. Calgary does not block a lot of shots in a typical game, ranking 26th at 11.96 blocks-per-60.
Finally, let's look at the special teams component: penalty killing and power play.
It's no secret that the Flyers entered this season needing to get much better on the penalty kill than they were last season. Philly had a rough time on the PK in the preseason and on opening night against Vancouver (partially through subpar execution and partially due to a couple freakish puck bounces).
Since then, though, the Flyers have significantly improved on the PK. They clock in for this game ranked 14th in the NHL with an 83.3 percent success rate. Among other tweaks both in personal and puck-pressuring strategy the addition of Cam Atkinson in particular has paid early dividends on the PK.
Philly has room to improve from a discipline standpoint. The Flyers rank third in the NHL in the dubious category of most times shorthanded per game (4.17 average).
Meanwhile, while there have been periodic Flyers power plays where they've struggled to gain entry and get set up, the power play overall has looked better from both a structural and execution standpoint over the opening six games of the season. Philadelphia enters the game ranked sixth in the NHL at a 27.8 percent efficiency rate.
Take the Flyers 83.3 percent PK rate and add the 27.8 percent power play and the team's overall 111.1 special teams composite stat is one of the best in the NHL so far this year.
Calgary comes in at 26.3 percent on the power play (ranked 9th) and 82.6 percent on the penalty kill (18th). Their special teams composite comes out to 108.9 overall. That's a very healthy number in its own right, albeit over a small sample of games.
4. Behind enemy lines: Flames
The goaltending work of Jacob Markström has been one big key to the Flames' early success this season. He comes in with a 3-1-1 record, 1.59 goals against average and .952 save percentage while starting five of the team's seven games played to date.
Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane are both off to torrid starts to the 2021-22 season from a goal-scoring standpoint: they've each tallied seven goals over the first seven games of the season. Blake Coleman has three goals and four points. Not surprisingly, Johnny Gaudreau leads the Flames in overall scoring with 10 points (1g, 9a) thus far.
Calgary has gotten pretty good balance across their lineup so far. Eleven different players have collected three or more points over the first seven games. Nine Flames players have at least one goal.
Projected Flames lineup:
13 Johnny Gaudreau - 28 Elias Lindholm - 19 Matthew Tkachuk
20 Blake Coleman - 11 Mikael Backlund - 18 Tyler Pitlick
88 Andrew Mangiapane - 29 Dillon Dube - 24 Brett Ritchie
17 Milan Lucic - 23 Sean Monahan - 22 Trevor Lewis

4 Rasmus Andersson - 8 Chris Tanev
58 Oliver Kylington - 26 Michael Stone
6 Juuso Välimäki - 44 Erik Gudbranson
25 Jacob Markström
[80 Daniel Vladar]
5. Players to watch: Laughton and Gaudreau.
The NHL's Selke Trophy winner back in 2019-20, Couturier quietly leads the Flyers in scoring so far with nine points (3g, 6a). His linemate, team captain Giroux, has gotten off to a tremendous start in collecting at least one point in each of the Flyers' first six games. He's shooting the puck well, too, and has eight points (4g, 4a) to date. However, Scott Laughton is the selection here for the player to watch in this game.
Laughton's line with James van Riemsdyk and Oskar Lindblom has not been scoring goals. Laughton has one tally. JVR got off the goal-scoring schneid last game, but it was a power play marker and not an even strength goal. Lindblom has been playing from a game-within-the-game details standpoint (winning board battles and creating or prolonging Philadelphia puck possession). However, he has only one assist and no goals to show for it so far.
Per MoneyPuck.com, on a leaguewide basis, the Lindblom-Laughton-JVR like ranks third in the entire NHL among regular trios in terms of hemming other teams in their own end of the ice and generating expected goals (3.63 on average per 60 minutes played, with JVR being the primary beneficiary of scoring chances) while yielding few to the opposition (2.18 per 60 minutes). Only the elite Boston trio of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastnak and Florida's top line centered by Aleksander Barkov ranks above the Laughton line in this area.
In this game against Calgary, Laughton in particular figures to play an important role in stabilizing things at even strength and putting pressure on the Flames. He also is a vital part of the penalty killing rotation.
On the Calgary side, every opponent keys on taking time and space away from the electrifying Gaudreau. That's easier said than done, as Johnny Hockey is one of the NHL's most slippery and elusive players with the puck on his stick. Few thread the needle better than he does and he can score from various angles when the situation arises where he has an open shot.
The fact that Gaudreau is a South Jersey product always makes his name come up in the context of the Philadelphia Flyers. The salary cap and the complicated realities of trades in the NHL -- along with the player's value to his team in Calgary -- have rendered moot the seemingly endless trade rumors over the years. But when he plays against the Flyers (or any other team), it's hard to take your eyes off him when the Flames are on the attack or in transition.