5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Hurricanes

John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (5-2-0) are home on Saturday evening to take on Rod Brind'Amour's Carolina Hurricanes (4-1-1) at the Wells Fargo Center on Halloween Spooktacular night. Game time is 7:05 p.m. EDT.

GAME NOTES
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 first of four meetings between the Metro Division clubs. The Flyers and Hurricanes will rematch at PNC Arena in Raleigh on Dec. 23 and March 9 before the season series concludes back in Philadelphia on March 18.
Here are five things to watch in Saturday's game.
1. Bellows' Debut
On Thursday, the
Flyers claimed KIeffer Bellows on waivers
from the New York Isanders.
Now 24, Bellows was drafted by the Islanders in the first round of the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. He possesses a rocket launcher of a shot and some physical bite but the development of the rest of his game has been somewhat limited. He has lacked consistency, and dressed in only one game this season for the Islanders (playing limited minutes) after posting six goals and 19 points in 45 games during the 2021-22 campaign. The left-handed shooting Bellows primarily plays left wing.
On Thursday, center/right winger Tanner Laczynski took a short-term leave from the team to be with his wife, Madison, as the young couple awaited the birth of their first child. He did not practice on Friday and was not yet back with the team per Tortorella. Also unavailable are injured forwards James van Riemsdyk (IR, surgery to repair a broken finger, out approximately six weeks), Sean Couturier (IR, back revision surgery, out approximately three to four months) and Cam Atkinson (upper body). Atkinson, who is not skating again yet, is still on the Flyers' active roster but is out indefinitely.
The Flyers dressed 11 forwards in Thursday's 4-3 win over the Florida Panthers. Bellows' arrival gives the team a full contingent of 12 healthy forwards. Correspondingly, the team dressed seven defensemen against Florida. The Flyers will go back to six D for this game. The odd man out could be rookie Egor Zamula, who struggled in the first period against Florida and was used very sparingly thereafter.
2. The Hart Factor
It's no secret that the No. 1 reason why the Flyers are off to a 5-2-0 start has been the stellar play in net of goaltender Carter Hart. Philadelphia has had to over-rely on the goalie, due to a severe deficit of puck possession, shot quantity and opponents getting to the high-danger areas of the ice.
Hart has started five of the seven games the team has played so far. He enters Saturday's game sporting a 5-0-0 record, 2.00 goals against average, and .947 save percentage in 300 minutes played. The latter two numbers are not sustainable given just how much time the Flyers spend in their own zone. However, in order to upset Carolina, Philadelphia will likely need another A+ overall performance from their goalie.
On Thursday against Florida, Hart made a career-high 48 saves, and his play over the final 40 minutes of the game was otherworldly. He was especially under siege in the third period. The Flyers' blocked 29 shots in front of Hart but goalie still faced 51 shots that got on net, and the Panthers attempted shots a staggering 104 times in a game that was decided in regulation. The final 2:04 of the game was almost entirely spent in the Flyers' zone with Florida attacking 6-on-5, with the Panthers generating seven shots on goal that were all stopped by Hart. Philly blocked eight -- five by Ivan Provorov with one block apiece by Scott Laughton, Travis Konecny and Noah Cates -- and two attempts missed the net.
Tortorella reiterated that he cares primarily about results, although he constantly stresses the need to defend better with body and stick positioning, kill plays before they develop and not let opponents play out of the corners so often.

It's a goalie's job to stop the puck but there is no goaltender in the NHL who can sustain the pace Hart is on if he's facing the sort of shot quantity (35.6 per game) and scoring chance danger that Hart has faced in most of his starts this season.. In the Nashville game, Philly staged a strong third-period closeout. Against Florida, the Flyers clung for dear life and survived it thanks to their goalie and the cavalcade of blocked shots.
3. Power Play has been clicking.
The Flyers have scored at least three goals in six of the seven games the team has played so far. They've gotten some unexpected goal sources -- two from Zack MacEwen, for example, and one from Nick Seeler -- but an even more important reason why the club has generated decent goal support thus far despite the negative possession disparity has been the power play.
After ranking dead last leaguewide in power play success rate -- actually, the worst season in franchise history since the NHL officially starting tracking power play stats in 1977-78, and the unofficial second-worst season below only the inaugural 1967-68 season based off box score research by Flyershistory.com -- new power play coach Rocky Thompson has introduced several adjustments that seem to working so far. The Flyers clock in at 22.7 percent (same as Carolina), having gone 5-for-22 so far.
It's early, of course, and power play success tends to ebb and flow even for the best teams over the course of a season. That said, the early returns have been encouraging. In terms of penalty killing success, Carolina comes in at 78.3 percent (18-for-23) while the Flyers are at 77.3 percent (17-for-22).
4. Frequent line juggling
Tortorella has severely shortened his bench in each of the last two games, mostly going with nine forwards and juggling combinations frequently almost from the outset. Last Sunday against San Jose, Flyers leading scorers Kevin Hayes (one goal, team-high nine assists) and Travis Konecny (four goals, four assists) found themselves on the bench for the entire third period. They received heavy-duty ice time against Florida.
In the Florida game, center Morgan Frost (two goals, one assist) and Wade Allison (one goal, zero assists) barely saw the ice after the first period (ditto defenseman Zamula, who was benched for the latter half of the first period and used very sporadically thereafter.
Tortorella indicated after Thursday's game and then again on Friday that he felt some of the Flyers' younger players (with ice times suggesting he excluded only Joel Farabee, Noah Cates and Owen TIppett) looked "overwhelmed" by the pace with which Florida was attacking the team, In Allison's case, Tortorella said that he wasn't being punitive. It was just a matter of getting the Hayes and Laughton lines out as much as possible for the best chance to win.
In Frost's case, Tortorella griped that "Frosty hasn't been earning his ice time", He previously expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that while Frost had two breakaways and two other scoring chances at the doorstep in a three-game span (at Tampa, at Sunrise and the third period at home against San Jose), none resulted in goals. Interestingly, earlier this week, assistant coach Rocky Thompson was the
special guest on the Flyers Daily podcast.
He had a more nuanced take on Frost's play thus far.
On the positive side, Thompson praised Frost's defensive improvements and noted how well Frost handled an especially tough defensive matchup against San Jose's Tomas Hertl last Saturday. The assistant also said that Frost has had good offensive moments so far this season, noting the player's very high skill level and natural speed. Where Thompson took issue with Frost (echoing comments made last season by former interim head coach Mike Yeo) was a need for the player to more consistently take advantage of his natural speed; using his feet to be first on pucks and to drive through the middle.
Noah Cates has been very solid defensively through the first seven games of the season. He made several outstanding plays on the defensive side of the puck in the Florida game and had one nice offensive sequence as well, resulting in a self-created scoring chance. Overall, though, he's struggled offensively apart from his game-winning goal sequence in Tampa. Through seven regular season games, that represents Cates' lone point. He's generated a meager five shots on goal in that span. In order to give Cates more forechecking opportunities and lessen some of his defensive responsibilities, Tortorella has moved Cates from center back to his more accustomed left wing spot (although Cates still takes shifts at center, too).
Cates has taken the second-most faceoffs on the team so far but is one of three centers who has struggled on draws. The breakdown:
Kevin Hayes: 117 faceoffs (41.9 W%)
Noah Cates: 111 faceoffs (34.2 W%)
Morgan Frost 77 faceoffs (40.3 W%)
Scott Laughton: 77 faceoffs (54.6 W%)
Lukas Sedlak: 20 faceoffs (55.0 W%)
Hayes is 46.0 percent on faceoffs for his 560-game NHL career. His numbers for this season are likely to improve over a larger sample size. Ditto Frost (47.3 career regular season percentage, team-best 60.5 percentage in the 2022 preseason). In Cates' case, added experience in the circle should benefit him over time. Laughton is 50.8 percent for his career on faceoffs and is outperforming his norms thus far.
The Flyers had an optional practice on Friday. Newcomer Bellows participated along with Allison, Tippett, Frost, MacEwen, Nicolas Deslauriers, Lukas Sedlak and defensemen Zamula, Seeler and Rasmus Ristolainen. There was also an optional morning skate on Saturday.
Subject to pregame tweaking and in-game juggling, the Flyers' starting lineup could look like this.
86 Joel Farabee - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny
49 Noah Cates - 21 Scott Laughton - 74 Owen Tippett
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 23 Lukas Sedlak - 17 Zack MacEwen
20 KIeffer Bellows - 48 Morgan Frost - 57 Wade Allison
9 Ivan Provorov - 77 Tony DeAngelo
6 Travis Sanheim - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen./ 61 Justin Braun
24 Nick Seeler - 61 Justin Braun/ 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
79 Carter Hart
[32 Felix Sandström]
5. Behind Enemy Lines: Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes got through a five-game west coast/ western Canada road trip in pretty good shape, going 3-1-1 and whittling their once-per-season visits to San Jose, Seattle, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver off the season's itinerary. Getting seven of 10 points from the trip is something any Eastern Conference team would gladly pocket, even a projected Cup contender such as Carolina.
However, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the Canes stumbled in their first game after the road trip. Returning home to Raleigh on Friday, the Hurricanes were on the wrong end of a 6-2 score against the New York Islanders.
The game was still in reach after two periods, with the Canes down by a 3-2 score. However, the Islanders pulled away in the final period with a three-goal blitz. spurred by two Brock Nelson tallies and a Zach Parise shorthanded empty netter. Martin Necas (4th goal of the season) and veteran roving offensive defenseman Brent Burns (1st) scored for Carolina in a losing cause. Frederik Andersen took the loss in goal, stopping 26 of 31 shots.
With the Hurricanes on a back-to-back and the middle game of a three-in-four set, the team did not skate on Saturday morning. Antti Raanta is the probable starter in goal. Embedded below is Carolina's starting lineup from Friday's game against the Islanders.