Playing their first game of 2025 and fourth match of a five-game road trip, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (17-17-4) are in Paradise, Nevada, to take on Bruce Cassidy's Vegas Golden Knights (25-9-3) on Thursday night. Game time at T-Mobile Arena is 10 p.m. EST.
The game will be televised on NBCSP+, The radio broadcast is on 93.3 WMMR with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
This is the second and final meeting of the season series between the teams. At Wells Fargo Center on November 25, the Flyers settled for one point in a 5-4 (1-0) shootout loss. Philly built leads of 3-0 and 4-3 but was unable to close it out successfully.
In the Nov. 25 game, Morgan Frost (one goal, one assist), Sean Couturier, Emil Andrae and Matvei Michkov scored for the Flyers. Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev, Pavel Dorofeyev (power play) and Tanner Pearson tallied for Vegas. Eichel netted the lone goal in the shootout after the Flyers were unable to capitalize on a 4-on-3 power play in overtime. Ilya Samsonov (32 saves on 36 shots, 3/3 in the shootout) earned the win over Ivan Fedotov (26 saves on 30 shots, 1/2 shootout).
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 4-0 combined shutout road win over the San Jose Sharks on New Year's Eve. Philadelphia put forth a solid all-around effort and overcame some adversity along the way when Samuel Ersson had to leave the game after two periods due to a lower-body injury.
In the first period of the San Jose game, the Flyers struggling power play scored a goal (Frost tip-in of an Owen Tippett shot pass) but had it disallowed on a coach's challenge for an offside initial entry. In the middle stanza, Travis Konecny scored a power play goal that stood in the final score. The Flyers also got goals from Nick Seeler, Ryan Poehling and Egor Zamula.
The Golden Knights, meanwhile,are coming off a 3-2 home loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday. Vegas took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission but was unable to build upon or protect it. Zach Whitecloud and Noah Hanifan tallied in a losing cause for Vegas.
Here are five things to watch on Thursday.
1. Between the pipes: Kolosov
Ersson did not practice with the team on New Year's Day and is officially day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Kolosov is the expected starter in Vegas, backed up by Fedotov.
In relief of Ersson on Tuesday night, Kolosov stopped all six shots he faced in the third period. He hardly saw any pucks until the latter half of the frame but then made several outstanding saves to preserve the combined shutout. It was a promising sign, because the Belarusian rookie struggled in Los Angeles during his first appearance after the holiday break.
Overall, Kolosov's play since his NHL recall from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms has been rather inconsistent from game to game and sometimes period to period. He's made his share of 10-bell saves but also let in a few too many off-angle goals or been unable to come up with stops of the "not easy but not impossible" variety. To date, he's posted a 4-7-1 record, 3.39 goals against average and .872 save percentage.
As advertised, Kolosov had outstanding lateral mobility in his crease. Other aspects, including rebound control, puck handling and not playing flat along the goal line, remain early works in progress. Other times, he's made clutch saves but gotten scored against a moment later on a rebound or loose puck scramble. Kolosov will celebrate his 23rd birthday on January 4.
It remains to be seen how many games Ersson will miss. Fedotov (4-4-1, 3.48 GAA, .877 SV%) will back up Kolosov in Vegas. Fedotov has not seen any game action since play the first period on December 5 against Florida (two goals allowed on seven shots),
2. Big opportunity for Poehling
In San Jose, Tortorella swapped team captain Couturier and Poehling in the lineup. Couturier went to a line with Garnet Hathaway and Joel Farabee. Normally the Flyers' fourth-line center, Poehling moved up to the No. 1 line with Tippett and team leading scorer Konecny on his flanks.
Poehling responded with a strong game against San Jose, including his third goal and 13th point of the 2024-25 season. It is sometimes forgotten that the 25-year-old Poehling was a first-round draft pick by Montreal in 2019.
The Minnesota native has lacked consistent finishing touch at the NHL level but is not devoid of skill. He has good speed, above-average size, 200-foot awareness and decent passing ability.
Poehling is a player that Tortorella trusts. Although it's rare for him to receive power play time, there have been nine games this season in which Poehling has received 14-plus minutes of ice time and 17 matches in which he's logged at least 13:30. His single-game high in ice time was 17:02 in the Flyers' win over the Minnesota Wild on October 26.
3. PK personnel tweaks
Last season and during the early part of the current campaign, there was no more formidable penalty killing forward duo in the NHL than the combination of Scott Laughton and Konecny. This was especially true in terms of generating shorthanded scoring chances and converting them into goals.
As a team, the Flyers penalty kill has been in a tailspin since late November. Individually, Konency in particular has struggled on the PK for the last six or seven weeks.
The first step undertaken by Tortorella and PK coach Brad Shaw was to experiment with separating Laughton and Konecny. Since the holiday break, Tortorella has increasingly taken a more drastic step of removing Konecny entirely from penalty killing situations.
This may only be a temporary measure, given TK's success last season and over the first quarter of the current campaign. Nonetheless, it's something that would have seemed extremely unlikely six weeks ago but is now at least a short-term reality.
After the Flyers' practice in Vegas on Wednesday, Tortorella told the traveling beat writers that he wants to give Farabee the first crack at an expanded presence in penalty killing situations. Thursday's game in Vegas and the upcoming home-and-home set against the Toronto Maple Leafs will be a big challenge for everyone on the PK units as well as Kolosov or whomever is in goal for the Flyers.
4. Blueline focus: relieving pressure
The Golden Knights, along with the Boston Bruins, are one of the NHL biggest and heaviest teams. Once they get their forecheck going, Vegas can be a real handful against whom to relieve pressure in the defensive zone.
The Golden Knights have nine forwards listed at 200 pounds or heavier. Meanwhile, all but one forward (Victor Olofsson) is listed at least at six feet tall. Meanwhile, on the blueline, every player on the NHL roster is listed at least at 6-foot-2 and five weigh 210 pounds or more.
Bottom line: The Golden Knights, in addition to having a stockpile of skill, are built to battle for pucks in the trenches. The Flyers must be efficient in getting pucks out their defensive zone and moving up ice as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Much of the responsibility for generating clears and breakouts will fall upon the duo of Travis Sanheim and Cam York. Shot-blocking and battles on the boards and netfront are strengths of Seeler and Rasmus Ristolainen. The Flyers will also need Jamie Drysdale, Sanheim and the collective D corps to jump into some plays up-ice to put Vegas on the defensive.
The Flyers will need all of this and more -- good gap control, fast reads on Vegas attacks, quick reactions to jumping on pucks and getting them up to the forwards, etc. -- to have a fighting chance at upsetting the Golden Knights on their home ice.
5. Behind enemy lines: Containing Eichel
Long since being fully recovered from the neck surgery that hastened his departure from the Buffalo Sabres, center Jack Eichel has enjoyed a stellar all-around season in the first half of the 2024-25 campaign.
Through 37 games, Eichel leads the Golden Knights in points (48), assists (38) and traditional plus-minus rating (+21). He's tied with Tomas Hertl for fourth on the club with 10 goals. He's logged an average 20:57 of ice time per game under Cassidy. Just the only area in which Eichel has struggled has been in the faceoff circle (47.2 percent).
