Beginning the California portion of a four-game road trip, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (5-6-1) will take on David Quinn's San Jose Sharks (0-10-1) at the SAP Center on Tuesday evening. Game time is 10:30 p.m. ET.
The game will be televised on NBCSP with Jim Jackson and Brian Boucher on the call. The radio broadcast, with Tim Saunders and Todd Fedoruk on the call, 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 inter-conference clubs. The Flyers and Sharks will rematch on March 12 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Last season, the teams split their two-game season series, with the road team prevailing in each game.
Here are five things to watch in Tuesday's game.
1. Playing with focused urgency
Last season, a winless Sharks team paid a late October visit to a Flyers club that was off to a good start at the time. It ended up being a tough night for the Flyers, as they got shut out, 3-0. During the game, both Travis Konecny and then-Flyer Kevin Hayes -- the team's two leading scorers at that juncture --- were benched for the entire third period.
The Flyers, who enter this game coming off a 5-0 home loss to the LA Kings on Saturday, need a strong bounceback performance. Despite the Flyers' recent struggles to win games -- 2-5-1 over the last eight games -- the team has generally played well enough to give itself a chance to win six of the least eight heading into the third period. In two of those games (Carolina and the first Buffalo game), the score was tied heading into the final stanza and Philly actually dominated the third period in terms of quantity and quality of scoring chances in the final stanza but still came up short.
As Tortorella put it on Monday, the Flyers are in no position to describe any contest as a potential "trap game." They need to bring focused urgency to every period of every game. The Flyers can't afford lapses, because just a couple bad shifts will turn potential wins into frustrating losses.
2. Getting off to a quick start
Entering Saturday's game against the Kings, the Flyers were the NHL's highest-scoring team in the first period. On Friday in Buffalo, Philly jumped all over the Sabres in the first period, playing fast and outworking the other side by a wide margin. The result was a 3-0 lead and an 11-4 scoring chance differential heading into the middle stanza. The Flyers went on to win, 5-1.
Consequently, the absence of Sean Couturier from the Flyers' lineup was a non-factor in Friday's game. The next night, against LA, the Flyers very much felt Couturier's absence head-to-head with Anze Kopitar and the Kings.
Couturier (lower-body) injury and Carter Hart (lower-body) are both on the road trip with the Flyers. For the rest of the Flyers' team, getting to a quick start against the Sharks and then counterpunching later in the game just as they did to the Sabres, is the best-case avenue to opening the road trip with a solid victory.
Specific to the Flyers' goaltending, Samuel Ersson played a strong game in Buffalo last Friday after struggling in his previous outings. Monday's game is a golden opportunity to make it two straight encouraging outings as he continues to restore confidence.
The Flyers recalled defenseman Victor Mete for the road trip. There is a possibility that he could slot in for Louie Belpedio or Egor Zamula at some point.
3. Flyers power play vs. Sharks PK
The temporary power play oasis the Flyers found in the game against Minnesota and portions of the loss to Anaheim has since disappeared. The Flyers are now in another power play drought, including an especially frustrating 0-for-4 against the Kings, marked by extensive offensive zone possession time but few bonafide scoring chances and no payoff. Entering Monday's game, the Flyers are an overall 4-for-41 (9.8 percent) on the power play this season.
Based on Monday's practice, it appears that the Flyers may shuffle the deck on the power play personnel again. Most notably, Noah Coates practiced with the first unit, although it remains to be seen if that will hold for the game.
For the Sharks, it's been tough to find positives in pretty much any aspect of the team's performance to date. That includes the penalty kill. Opposing power play are 14-for-43 against the Sharks thus far, giving the Sharks a 67.4% percent ratio on the penalty kill: essentially one goal against for every three opposing power plays. The Sharks also have yet to score a shorthanded goal.
4. Flyers PK versus Sharks power play
The Flyers went 3-for-4 on the penalty kill against the Kings on Saturday. Philly paid the price for a delay of game penalty by Cam York in the second period. Overall, however, the Flyers' PK has generally been solid this season.
For the season, the Flyers' penalty kill ranks tied for 15th at 79.4 percent success (27-for-34). The Flyers have scored four shorthanded goals: two apiece for Konecny and Sean Walker.
The Sharks have struggled mightily for goals at 5-on-5 so far this season. They've had a little more success on the power play, going 6-for-33 (18.2 percent, ranked 19th). It's been the closest thing to a bright spot for San Jose in their nightmarish start to the 2023-24 season.. The Sharks have yielded one shorthanded goal to date.
5. Behind enemy lines: San Jose Sharks
The Sharks suffered back-to-back routs in their last two games, yielding 10 goals apiece to the Canucks (10-1 loss) and Penguins (10-2 loss). General manager Mike Grier was so alarmed by the level of non-competitiveness he's seen of late that he took the relatively uncommon step of leading a closed door GM-team meeting with the Sharks' players.
San Jose looks to avoid potentially becoming the first modern-day NHL team to go winless in its first 12 games (if they do not defeat the Flyers on Monday. So, it would stand to reason that the Sharks will come out fired up for Monday's home game.
As a team, the Sharks have only scored a combined 12 goals this season. The club has a total goal differential (minus-43 on 12 GF to 55 GA) that hasn't been seen this early in the season in decades. The NHL's second worst goal-differential team, Edmonton (minus-18), is 25 ahead of where the Sharks are in terms of negative disparity.
Tomas Hertl (1g, 6a) tops the Sharks with seven points to date. No other player has more than four points. Fabian Zetterlund (3g, 1a) is the goal-scoring leader to date. Former New Jersey Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood is 0-6-1 with a 4.78 GAA and .879 save percentage. Kaapo Kahkonen is 0-4-0 with a 4.30 GAA and .876 save percentage to date.
