Starting the second half of the 2023-24 season, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (21-14-6) are in St. Paul on Friday night to take on John Hynes' Minnesota Wild (17-19-4). Game time at Xcel Energy Center is 8:00 p.m. ET.
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 two meetings between the teams this season, and the lone game in Minnesota. Back on October 26, the Flyers skated to a 6-2 blowout win over the Wild at Wells Fargo Center.
In the previous game against the Wild this season, Flyers rookie winger Bobby Brink (a native of Chaska, Minnesota) tallied the first and second goals of his NHL career. Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier, Owen Tippett and Travis Sanheim also scored for Philadelphia. Carter Hart made 26 saves to earn the win. Dakota Mermis and Marcus Foligno scored third period goals for Minnesota. Filip Gustavsson stopped 29 of 35 shots in a losing cause.
Over the Flyers last 10 games, the team has gone 3-4-3. However, the Flyers are 2-1-1 over their last four matches and enter this game coming off a home shootout win.
In Wednesday's win against the Canadiens, the Flyers dominated the first period but fell into a 2-0 deficit after a pair of deflected goals (on Montreal's only two shots on goal of the period). Undaunted, the Flyers pushed back for goals by Tippett (14th of the season) and Morgan Frost (PPG, 7th). Jamie Drysdale, making his Flyers debut, assisted on Frost's tally. Sean Couturier netted the winning shootout goal. Samuel Ersson made 17 saves and thwarted all three shootout attempts he faced.
Here are five things to watch in Friday's game:
1.Tippett and Frost Getting in a Groove?
In several recent 5 Things game previews, we've talked about the Flyers' need for supplementary scoring beyond the top line trio of Joel Farabee, Sean Couturier, and team-leading point getter Travis Konecny. Over the last week, there have been some signs of hope in that regard.
Tippett has scored goals in back-to-back games heading into Friday's match: a power play marker from above the right circle in Monday's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins and a sharp angle tally against Montreal.
Frost has three points in the last three games (2g, 1a) since he requested a one-on-one meeting last Friday with Tortorella. A healthy scratch 11 times this season after only being scratched once last season, Frost is on a quest to make sure he is not removed from the lineup again.
The Flyers need both players to produce points with more consistency. Over the team's past 16 games, Tippett (6g, 3a) and Frost (4g, 5a) are tied for fourth on the team with nine points apiece. Both are capable of more. In that 16-game-span, Konecny leads the club with 18 points (9g, 9a), followed by Farabee (4g, 11a, 15 points) and Couturier (4g, 7a, 11 points).
2. More "Committee Members" Needed Offensively
The Flyers not only need more consistent production from Tippett and Frost, they also need more members of their "scoring-by-committee" crew of forwards to start chipping in some goals again. This includes rookie Tyson Foerster (0g, 6a in his last 16 games), Cam Atkinson (0g, 6a in his last 25 games), Scott Laughton (2g, 6a, eight points in the last 26 games), and Ryan Poehling (0g, 2a in the last 10 games).
Brink, meanwhile, has seen his ice time drop of late. In the last four games, respectively, he's played 12:39, 9:36, 9:45, and 11:08 despite the Flyers dressing just 11 forwards in three of the games. In his case, Tortorella is more unhappy with the Flyers' checking and pacing than his ability to produce some points.
Brink has two points (1g, 1a) in eight games since the Christmas break. Heading into the break, he had a stretch of five points (2g, 3a) in seven games despite moderate ice time (13:56 average) during that stretch.
3. Blueline continuity
With the acquisition of Drysdale on Monday, the Flyers now have eight defensemen on the NHL roster. Keeping eight D and/or repeatedly dressing seven D and 11 forwards in games is a stopgap measure. Tortorella admits that's not a viable long-term strategy.
Drysdale and Travis Sanheim (25 points, 24:34 TOI average) skated together on the Flyers' top pairing on Wednesday, with Sanheim moving back to the left side to accommodate his right-handed shooting new teammate. The new second pairing at 5-on-5 is Cam York (14 points, 22:28 TOI) with right-handed Sean Walker (13 points, 20:16 TOI).
On Wednesday, the Flyers rotated defensemen Egor Zamula and Nick Seeler with Rasmus Ristolainen. In that game, the primary third pair was Ristolainen (23 shifts, 17:01 TOI) and Seeler (21 shifts, 15:42). Zamula played 13:43 across 17 shifts, with 1:24 and two shifts of that ice time coming on the power play.
Zamula has played fairly well lately, and Tortorella is particularly pleased with the rookie's work on the power play. At least for starters, Zamula remained on the first power play unit while Drysdale was on PP2. Eventually, it seems likely that Drysdale will go to PP1 but it may not happen right away.
For the season, Seeler has averaged 17:08 of ice time while dressing in every game. He regularly played on the middle defensive pairing until Drysdale was acquired and York bumped down a pairing. Ristolainen (17:26 TOI) is unlikely to exit the lineup.
As such, if the Flyers don't dress seven defensemen, Tortorella and assistant coach Brad Shaw will eventually have to make game-by-game decisions on how to arrange the third pairing in particular. They also need to find spots for veteran Marc Staal (16 games played, 13:17 TOI) to see at least enough game action to stay sharp if he's needed to step back into the lineup for a multi-game stretch, such as if the blueline accumulates injuries.
4. Flyers special teams vs. Wild special teams
The Flyers have scored a power play goal in three straight games: one by Couturier, one by Tippett and one by Frost. They'll try to make it four in a row against the Wild.
For the season, the Flyers' power play is ranked last leaguewide (15-for-132, 11.4 percent, two shorthanded goals allowed). The goal in the second half of the regular season is to improve how they fare in the latter 41-game sample size. That's more important at this point than how the final league rankings over 82 games end up. Even modest PP improvement in the second half could result in some extra wins.
On the flip side, the Flyers had a spectacular first half of the regular season on the penalty kill: ranked second leaguewide (86.3 percent, with opponents going 18-for-131) with a league-high 10 shorthanded goals scored (five by Konecny, two by Walker and one apiece for Poehling, Laughton, and Garnet Hathaway).
It would be great for the Flyers to maintain a similar PK percentage in the second half of the season to what they generated over the first half of the season. Credit also goes to goalies Carter Hart and Ersson. In terms of shorthanded goals, scoring another 10 in the final 41 games would be an extremely tall task for the penalty kill units. That said, the Flyers generate so many shorthanded counterattacks on 2-on-1s and breakaways that they're likely to collect a handful of SHGs if they maintain the puck pressure and quick transition play the team showed in the first half of the schedule.
The Wild will enter Friday's game ranked 21st on the power play at 18.7 percent success (25-for-134). On the positive side, they're among the bitter NHL clubs in drawing penalties on the opposition (11th most power play opportunities). On the downside, apart from their nothing-special leaguewide ranking, the Wild hold the unwanted ranking of being tied for the most shorthanded goals allowed (seven).
Minnesota's penalty kill has struggled this season. The team checks into Friday's game ranked 30th in the NHL in PK success (72.8 percent) with opponents going 37-for-136. The Wild are the NHL's seventh most-penalized team in terms of times shorthanded (which matter more than raw PIMs). The Wild have scored two shorthanded goals this season: one apiece by Brandon Duhaime and Connor Dewar.
5. Behind Enemy Lines: Minnesota Wild
The Wild have posted a 4-6-0 record over their last 10 games, and have lost back-to-back games in regulation heading into Friday's match. Minnesota is 10-8-2 on home ice thus far in 2023-24.
This week, the Wild got swept by their historic Minnesota predecessors, the Dallas Stars, in a home-and-home set. On Monday, the Stars came into the Xcel Energy Center and shut out the Wild by a 4-0 count. On Wednesday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. The Stars produced a 7-2 blowout win.
The Wild got blanked through the first two periods of the latter game before Matthew Boldy scored a 5-on-5 deflection goal (14th of the season) at 4:12 of the third period to temporarily cut a 3-0 deficit to two goals. Dallas added two more goals to open a 5-1 cushion before Mats Zuccarello and Boldy set up a power play tally by former Flyers forward Ryan Hartman (12rh) for the Wild's goal. Dallas struck twice more in the latter portion of the final period.
As expected, the ever-dangerous Kirill Kaprizov (13g, 21a in 34 games) leads the Wild in scoring despite missing six games due to injury and currently being on IR with an upper-body injury suffered on Dec. 30. He is not yet ready to rejoin practice, so the Flyers will not have to face him again this season.
Kaprisov's presence alone would not have materially changed the outcomes of the back-to-back games against the Stars. However, he has been sorely missed by the Wild since he's been out.
Veteran playmaking forward Zuccarello is second on the Wild with 30 points (six goals, team-high 21 assists) despite previously missing nine games this season due to injury. The 36-year-old winger returned to play shortly after New Year's.
The diminutive but gifted Norwegian forward recently hit the 600-point milestone in his NHL career and is three games away from 800 regular season matches in the NHL. Zuccarello began his NHL career in 2010 as a sparingly-used forward on Tortorella's New York Rangers before hitting his stride and blossoming into one of the league's most underrated creators.
Kaprisov and Zuccarello are followed on the Wild scoring leaderboard by two-way forward Joel Eriksson Ek (15g, 27 points), Boldy (26 points) , Marco Rossi (12g, 12a), veteran Marcus Johansson (5g, 16a), agitating forward Hartman (12g, 20 points) and defenseman Brock Faber (2g, 18a). Foligno has posted 15 points (6g, 9a).
The Wild blueline has been decimated by injuries to their two most reliable veteran mainstays. Jonas Brodin, who still logs massive time (23:59 TOI average this season), has been on long-term IR since early December with an upper-body injury. Team captain Jared Spurgeon has had three separate injuries this season and went back onto IR on January 3.
Goaltender Gustavsson (22GP, 10-9-2 record, 2.95 GAA, .903 save percentage, two shutouts) is also on IR, as he is week-to-week with a lower-body injury. Veteran Marc-Andre Fleury (19 GP, 7-9-2 record, 3.12 GAA, .892 SV%) and callup goalie Jesper Wallstedt (the starter in the last game against Dallas, stopping just 27 of 34 shots) will likely split Minnesota's back-to-back games this weekend against the Flyers on Friday and the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday.
