5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Kraken

There's a first time for everything. On Monday night, Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers will play their first-ever game against the brand new Seattle Kraken when former Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol brings his team to the Wells Fargo Center. Game time is 7:00 p.m. ET (NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic).

The Flyers enter this game coming off an uneven performance in their season-opening 5-4 (2-0) shootout loss to the Vancouver Canucks at home on Friday. Philadelphia dominated the first period, then put themselves in position to have to chase the game the rest of the way. Late goals by Travis Konecny (6-on-4, power play) and Claude Giroux (6-on-5) rescued a point.
After an off-day on Saturday, the team practiced on Sunday at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. Here are five storylines to track on the meeting with the Kraken.
1. Establishing and maintaining retrievals and forecheck.
The Flyers threw an aggressive two-man forecheck at Vancouver right from the get-go of Friday's opener. They skated well, dominating possession through quick retrievals of chip-ins, establishing a physical presence (15 credited hits to nine by the opponent) and broke out of their own zone cleanly. The result was a 1-0 lead at intermission, a 66.67% percent share of the five-on-five shot attempts, 10 total scoring chances including a 5-2 high-danger chance advantage.
Unfortunately for the Flyers, Vancouver adjusted between periods. The two-man forecheck was beaten on the sequence that led up to an early second-period Vasily Podkoldin goal that knotted the score. Then the Flyers got into self-inflicted penalty trouble and a 1-1 tie rapidly turned into a 3-1 deficit. The Flyers ultimately went into the third period trailing 4-2.
The Flyers never really got back into the sort of high-energy, crisp execution that marked the first period. Vancouver controlled most of the third period until a bad penalty late in the period by Oliver Ekman-Larsson opened the door for Philly to make the late push that resulted in the Konecny power play goal and the bank-in play that Giroux converted into a scintillating game-tying goal.
Overall, the Canucks were the better team in the second, third and overtime periods. The Flyers will need to dictate a higher overall percentage of the play over the course of games moving forward to come away with two points.
2. Hart under attack.
Carter Hart had an uneven performance in the opener. He was sharp in the first period but not tested much. In the second period, he was victimized on a pair of bizarre goals (at least one of which he seemed to misread as the play developed), a 5-on-3 goal on the follow-up of a shot it initially seemed like he had covered and one goal upstairs on a wicked shot from the right dot (Pozkoldin's) that would have been a very tough save if he'd made it.
In the third period, Hart had a couple of early shots that he didn't stop cleanly but kept in front of him and covered quickly. As the frame moved along, he settled in and kept the Flyers within two goals. He was tested multiple times and came away with 15 saves over the final two minutes of regulation. For most of OT, the ice was tilted against Philly. Hart made a half-dozen more saves. All were of at least medium difficulty including a one-on-save on the deadly Elias Pettersson.
In the shootout, Pettersson opened up Hart enough to score through the five-hole and J.T. Miller outmaneuvered the goal to end the skills competition in two rounds. Overall, though, there were positive things to take away from the performance in terms of how Hart battled back from adversity and settled in over the final 25 minutes of hockey. On Sunday, Vigneault announced that Hart would start against Seattle.
3. Special teams and attention to detail.
It's no secret that the Flyers will have to improve their penalty killing (ranked 30th in the NHL last year) significantly if they are to accomplish one of their key stated objectives for the 2021-22 season: drastically reduce a team goals against average that ranked last in the NHL after being 7th the previous year.
Additionally, one of this season's goals is to significantly reduce the number of careless lapses in attention-to-detail that can either stall momentum through needless penalties or, at worse, cost the team directly on the scoreboard.
During the six-game preseason, the Flyers yielded eight opposing power play goals. In the opener against Vancouver, the Flyers were just 2-for-4. Particularly galling was Philadelphia putting itself down on a 5-on-3 because of a delay of game (Ivan Provorov put the puck over the glass from the defensive zone) and too many men on the ice penalty. That was a strictly self-inflicted wound and it resulted in a goal that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-1 disadvantage.
On the flip side, the Flyers power play in the opener was pretty good. Officially it only scored once but the game-opening Joel Farabee pinball goal was scored very shortly after a power play expired. The Konecny goal on the 6-on-4 was also well executed.
At practice on Sunday, the Flyers kept all the same forward lines and power play unit combinations as in the opener. Rasmus Ristolainen (day-to-day, upper body injury) practiced but is not ready to return. Nick Seeler, was sent down to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for one day in order to save a little bit of cap space, is slated for a recall and will be paired again with Keith Yandle, per Vigneault.
Projected Flyers lineup:
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
71 Max Willman - 42 Nate Thompson -62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel
9 Ivan Provorov - 94 Ryan Ellis
6 Travis Sanheim - 61 Justin Braun
3 Keith Yandle - 24 Nick Seeler
79 Carter Hart
[35 Martin Jones]
4. Behind enemy lines: Seattle
While the Flyers will be playing for just the second time during the regular season, the Kraken will already be in their fourth game. Hakstol's team is 1-1-1 to date including a 2-1 overtime road loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday. All three games thus far have been decided by one goal.
Brandon Tanev's third goal of the young seasonbroke a scoreless deadlock in the second period. On the play, "Turbo" took advantage of a whiff by Oliver Bjorkstrand to step past the Columbus forward at the Blue Jackets blue line, outmaneuver goalie Elvis Merzlikins and score.
Midway through the third period, Columbus finally solved Phillip Grubauer (23 saves on 25 shots) to force overtime. During the 3-on-3 sudden death frame, Patrik Laine took advantage of a bad chance to score and end the game.
Overall, Hakstol felt his teams gave up too makes chances off the rush to Columbus but was pleased with his team's work ethic and competitiveness. The underlying numbers supported that assessment. At five-on-five, Seattle denied only 37.2 percent of Columbus' entry attempts but had more overall actual puck possession (4:05 to 3;32) per the calculations on the Kraken's official site.
Seattle did not take a single penalty in Saturday's game. Overall, the Kraken are 4-for-5 on the PK in their games to date. They are 2-for-6 on the power play. Fellow former Pittsburgh Penguins players Jared McCann and Tanev have each tallied a power play marker apiece.
At 5-on-5 through their first three games, the Kraken have five goals but yielded seven. Grubauer has started in three games to date in net. Former Edmonton Oilers and New York Islanders forward Jordan Eberle has notched a pair of assists to date, as has former San Jose Sharks and Colorado Avalanche forward Joonas Donskoi. Alexander Wennberg has notched one goal and one assist thus far.
Much of Kraken general manager Ron Francis' focus in creating the initial NHL has been on building the expansion team's blueline. Familiar names include inaugural captain Mark Giordano, shutdown-oriented Adam Larsson, huge-framed and aggressive Jamie Oleksiak and the physically gifted but inconsistent Vince Dunn.
The Kraken had an off-day on Sunday. Come Monday night, there's a 100 percent chance the sun will rise in the east. There's nearly as strong of a likelihood that Hakstol will get booed by much of the Wells Fargo Center crowd and stoically take it in stride as just being part of the turf.
5. Players to Watch: Atkinson and Giordano
Cam Atkinson had a successful debut as a Flyer on Friday against Vancouver. He scored a goal from the slot for his first goal as a Flyer (at the time, it narrowed a 3-1 deficit to 3-2). He forced a turnover on a penalty kill and sprung Nate Thompson to go in alone on net. In overtime, Atkinson made the seas part and nearly scored on a backhander. If he had scored, it would have a spectacular finish to the game.
Giordano, the NHL's Norris Trophy winner during the 2018-19 season, is an unrestricted free agent after the 2021-22 season. Nonetheless, the Kraken named him as their first captain. A highly respected leader and still a fine offensive producer, Giordano will be counted upon as a tone-setter and settling presence. He has averaged 21:19 of ice time through the first three games.