5 THINGS: Flyers @ Penguins
John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (29-33-13) are in western Pennsylvania on Sunday evening to take on Mike Sullivan's Pittsburgh Penguins (37-29-10)
GAME NOTES
The game will televised on NBCSP+. The radio feed with be on 93.3 WMMR with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
This is the third and final meeting of the season between the Metro Division archrivals. The Flyers. who are 0-2-0 against the Penguins this season, need at least a point from a regulation tie to keep alive a streak that dates back to the 1967-68 inaugural season for both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. There have been previous season series in which the Flyers did not win a game against the Penguins but there has, to date, never been one in which Philly failed to at least earn one point in the season series.
The Flyers are playing for the third time in four nights and the second game of a back-to-back set. On Saturday, the team wasted a two-goal performance by Morgan Frost (17th and 18th of the season) and a Travis Konecny tally (28th) in his return from a 16-game absence due to an upper-body injury. Felix Sandström had a tough time in net, stopping just 22 of 28 shots.
1. Farabee-Frost-Tippett Line
Frost has five points ( 4g, 1a) in his last three games; the hottest goal scoring streak of the 23 year-old center's NHL career to date. Frost has reached the 40-point milestone in his first full NHL season after playing partial campaigns in the NHL in 2019-20 (20 games), 2020-21 (lost for the season with a shoulder injury in the second period of his second game), and 2021-22 (55 games).
Dating back to New Year's 2023, Frost is the Flyers leading scorer: 11g, 16a, 27 points in 36 games played. Dating back to Dec. 5 -- 50 games ago -- Frost leads the Flyers in assists (tied with Tony DeAngelo, 21), and points (36).
Meanwhile, Owen Tippett is tied with Frost for the team's goal-scoring lead (11) since New Year's. Over the last 50 games, Tippett's 17 tallies trail only Konecny's 19 and "Tipp" is fourth on the team with 32 points.
On Saturday day night against Buffalo, Tippett came within a whisker of scoring a wraparound goal. The puck was stopped along the goal line. Going in to Saturday's game, Tippett had posted points in three straight games (2g, 1a)
Frost and Tippett's linemate, Joel Farabee, collected a primary assist on Frost's second goal of the Buffalo game. Farabee has posted at least one point in six of the last eight games (4g, 4a, eight points).
2. 300th Goal in Reach for JVR
He's had a recent breakaway and a couple of other scoring chances of late, but veteran forward James van Riemsdyk has just one point (0g, 1a) to show for his last seven games and five points in 23 games (2g, 3a) since the All-Star break. He does have two successful shootout attempts in that span but those do not count in players' individual statistics.
Entering tonight's game, van Riemsdyk is still two goals away from reaching 300 in his NHL career. Among his 298 tallies in his career, JVR has scored 144 in 519 games for the Flyers. He had 154 goals in 413 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs after breaking into the NHL with the Flyers and before returning to Philadelphia as a free agent in the summer of 2018.
In terms of the Flyers all-time games played list, JVR is three games away from tying Murray Craven for 32nd in team history (523 regular season GP).
3. Sunday Goalie Plan: TBD
Carter Hart, who has missed the last three games with a lower-body injury, took part in Saturday's morning skate in Voorhees. During the game, Samuel Ersson (on emergency recall from the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms, backed up Sandström.
If Hart is available to play this evening, he will get the start. Ersson would, if possible, return to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms and start the team's 3:00 p.m. EDT road game against the Bridgeport Islanders. If Hart remains unavailable, Ersson would start for the Flyers in Pittsburgh. Sandström played on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
4. Flyers Line Play
In each of the last two games, assistant coach Brad Shaw has run the bench while head coach Tortorella has watched the game elsewhere in the building with interim general manager Danny Briere. Tortorella indicated that, while he will coach additional games this season from behind the bench, assistant coaches Shaw, Rocky Thompson and Darryl Williams would all get the opportunity to serve as the game-night "head" coach at some point before the end of the season.
The Flyers will not hold a morning skate on Sunday. On Saturday, the Flyers went back to featuring a lineup with 11 forwards (Kieffer Bellows and Tanner Laczynski were scratched) and 13 defensemen (Justin Braun dressed).
A potential lineup for Sunday, based on Saturday's combinations (subject to change):
86 Joel Farabee - 48 Morgan Frost - 74 Owen Tippett
21 Scott Laughton - 49 Noah Cates - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 13 Kevin Hayes - 57 Wade Allison
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - xxxxxxxx - 22 Brendan Lemieux
9 Ivan Provorov - 45 Cam York
6 Travis Sanheim - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
24 Nick Seeler - 77 Tony DeAngelo
61 Justin Braun
79 Carter Hart or 33 Samuel Ersson
[32 Felix Sandström]
5. Behind Enemy Lines: Pittsburgh Penguins
The Penguins, who are 3-7-0 in their last 10 games, have at least temporarily fallen out of playoff position in the Eastern Conference race. At the start of play today, the Florida Panthers (idle tonight, 7 -0 win over Columbus on Saturday) have 85 points with 77 games played. The Penguins, who have played 76 games, come in with 84 points. The Panthers hold a tiebreaker advantage with 33 regulation wins to Pittsburgh's 28.
As with the Flyers, the Penguins are playing for the third time in four nights. On Thursday, the Penguins shut out the visiting Nashville Predators, 2-0. On Saturday afternoon. the President's Trophy winning Boston Bruins won the special teams battle to come away with a 4-3 decision over the host Penguins.
Veteran Penguins defenseman Kris Letang, who has twice overcome strokes and continued his NHL playing career, will play in his 1,000th career regular season game on Sunday. The team will honor him in a pregame ceremony. Letang will celebrate his 36th birthday on April 24.
The Penguins will not hold a morning skate on Sunday. A potential starting lineup (based on Saturday's game, subject to change):
59 Jake Guentzel - 87 Sidney Crosby - 17 Bryan Rust
16 Jason Zucker - 71 Evgeni Malkin - 67 Rickard Rakell
43 Danton Heinen - 25 Ryan Poehling - 64 Mikael Granlund
10 Drew O'Connor - 77 Jeff Carter - 15 Josh Archibald
8 Brian Dumoulin - 58 Kris Letang
73 Pierre-Olivier Joseph - 26 Jeff Petry
52 Mark Friedman - Chad Ruhwedel
1 Casey DeSmith
35 Tristan Jarry
