John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (14-14-4) are home on Thursday night to host Jim Hiller's Los Angeles Kings (18-9-4). Game time at Wells Fargo Center is 7:30 p.m. EST.
The game will be streamed on Hulu/ESPN+ The radio broadcast is on 97.5 The Fanatic with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
This is the first of two meetings this season between the interconference clubs. The Flyers and Kings will rematch in Los Angeles on December 29.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 6-4 road loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday evening. Philly was plagued by turnovers, early game penalty issues, spotty puck support and two potentially stoppable shots that ended up in the net. On the positive side, the Flyers showed their resilience on coming back from 2-1 and 4-2 deficits.
The Kings enter their fifth game of a seven-game road trip.They are 2-1-1 on the trip to date. On Tuesday, LA sustained a 3-2 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena.
Here are five things to watch in Thursday's tilt:
1. Koly the Goalie
There's no morning skate for the Flyers on Thursday, having played the previous night in Detroit. It's likely, however, that rookie goaltender Aleksei Kolosov was scheduled to start Thursday's game regardless of whatever happened against the Red Wings on Wednesday.
Last Thursday, Kolosov flirted with a shutout for 56 minutes in a 4-1 home win against the Red Wings. He was very sharp overall in that game, and the lone goal he yielded was off a deflected puck that redirected off a teammate.
The Kings, meanwhile, have tabbed David Rittich for 16 starts thus far among his 18 appearances (10-7-0, 2.49 goals against average, .890 save percentage). Veteran Darcy Kuemper has made 14 starts (7-2-4, 2.32 GAA, .915 save percentage, one shutout).
On Tuesday in Pittsburgh, Kuemper stopped 28 of 32 shots. Due to breakdowns in front of him -- uncharacteristic of the Kings -- LA was unable to protect a third period lead. Additionally, the only goal support he received were tallies from Adrian Kempe and Alex Turcotte.
2. Puck management
After a poor start to the season from both structural and puck management standpoints -- which too often led to games where the Flyers spent considerably more time in their own end of the ice rather than on the attack -- the Flyers cleaned up most of the process-related problems that were plaguing them in five-on-five play.
Unfortunately, Wednesday's match in Detroit was a backward step in terms of how the Flyers played with and without the puck. The Flyers paid the price for allowing too many odd man rushes. They also were guilty of a bad line change with Detroit in possession of the puck. Lastly, the puck support was inconsistent when up ice and there were too many D-zone sequences in which opposition attackers got to the inside.
The mantras of "defending from the middle out" and "checking forward" to generate attacking opportunities were not in evidence nearly enough in Friday's game. The Flyers need to get right back on the beam in these areas against a strong LA club.
3. Line combinations and defensive pairs
The Flyers put their line combos and defense pairs in a blender by the third period of Wednesday's game. Additionally, top pair defenseman Cam York sat on the bench throughout the game's final 20 minutes.
The one forward line combination that was not altered by Tortorella on Thursday was the trio with Noah Cates centering Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink. The other three lines varied by shifts. Scott Laughton moved from left wing to center in the third period, while Ryan Poehling (normally the fourth line center) moved to left wing and ended up scoring his second goal of the season.
Will there be lineup changes or combination tweaks for the start of Thursday's game? Will defenseman Emil Andrae (scratched in the last three games) re-enter the Philadelphia lineup? Within the game, how long will Tortorella wait before he juggles forward lines again?
The Flyers had a lot of line continuity over an eight-game stretch before in-game tweaks in Minnesota last Saturday and wholesale switches on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see how the lines start out against the Kings, how much they're moved around (apart from normal after-PK or post-power play variations on the next shift), and how ice time is distributed in the second game of the current four-in-six stretch.
4. Flyers special teams
The Flyers penalty killing slump has been ongoing since Thanksgiving. The normal fluctuations and short-term hiccups that happen to all teams have now been a three-week free fall that have dropped the Flyers from near the top of the NHL to the middle of the pack (79.8 percent success rate overall).
Dating back to Black Friday, the Flyers have yielded nine opposing power play goals on 24 opportunities for a dismal 62.5 percent PK percentage. Meanwhile, in the same span, the Kings PK has gone 17-for-18 (94.4 percent) to move into the league's top 10 for the season.
The power play has been an even bigger struggle for the Kings than the Flyers this season, however. LA's power play comes into Thursday's game at 15.3 percent, ranking 28th leaguewide. The Flyers, who only had one power play opportunity in Wednesday's game are 26th in the NHL at 16.5 percent success.
5. Behind enemy lines: Kopitar
The seemingly ageless Anze Kopitar remains one of the NHL's most consistent all-around centers. At age 37, the big Slovenian center leads the Kings in points (35) and assists (27) while playing in all game situations (19:17 of average ice time per game.
Kopitar, a perennial Selke Trophy candidate, is a traditional +15 this season today. He also remains one of the most dominant faceoff takers in the hockey world, especially on his strong (left) side. Overall, Kopitar has won 57.1 percent of his draws this year: the seventh straight season in which the Kings have had instant puck possession from 55 percent of more of the draws taken by their captain.
In 1,404 career regular season games in the NHL, all with the Kings, Kopitar has produced 427 goals, 819 assists, 1,246 points and a cumulative +109 rating. The two-time Selke Trophy winner has a pair of Stanley Cup rings, five NHL All-Star Game selections and two Lady Byng Trophies in his Hockey Hall of Fame caliber resume.
