In the second game of their Thanksgiving week road trip, Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers (11-7-3) are in Sunrise to take on Paul Maurice’s two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers (12-9-1). This is the third and final meeting of the season series between the teams. The Flyers are 1-1-0 head-to head with Florida so far.
Game time at Amerant Bank Arena is 7:00 p.m. EST. The game will be televised on NBCSP.
The Flyers need a bounceback game from Monday. The Tampa Bay Lightning shut out the Flyers, 3-0, in a mostly low-event game. Philly had no answers for Tampa’s top line (Nikita Kucherov, Anthoy Cirelli, Brandon Hagel), which accounted for all three goals. The Flyers had little sustained attack and did not test Andrei Vasilevskiy (20 saves) with enough scoring chance difficulty.
The Panthers, meanwhile, crushed the Nashville Predators, 8-3, on their Bridgestone Arena home ice on Monday. A.J. Greer had two goals and an assist for the Panthers. Meanwhile, Sam Reinhart tallied his 13th goal of the season and added two assists. Carter Verhaeghe also enjoyed a three-point outburst (one goal, two helpers). Daniil Tarasov made 36 saves, facing 13 shots apiece in all three periods.
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch on Wednesday evening.
1. Game management
It’s back to the drawing board for the Flyers after Monday’s disappointing outing in Tampa Bay. Philly only yielded 18 shots for the game but they coughed up too many odd-man rushes, especially in the second period.
Meanwhile, the more aggressive forechecking adjustment that worked well against New Jersey on Saturday produced only sporadic pressure against Tampa. The Flyers’ game management needs to be much better against the Panthers.
2. Tippett vs. his original team
The streaky Owen Tippett is tied for fourth on the Flyers with 13 points to date (six goals, seven assists). He saw a four-game, seven point streak end during the shutout loss to the Lightning. Tippett will look on Wednesday to get right back on the scoresheet.
Tippett has played 10 career games against the Panthers since coming to Philadelphia in the Claude Giroux trade. He has three points (2g, 1a) but is also plus-three. The player did not garner a point in the first two meetings this season but fired a combined five shots on goal.
Bottom line: The Flyers need Tippett’s combination of size and speed to come to the forefront against Florida. A big night for the player would portend well in the final meeting of the season series.
3. Between the pipes
Tocchet and goaltending coach Kim Dillabaugh apparently elected to evenly divide the games this week, two starts apiece, between Dan Vladar and Samuel Ersson. Ersson played well on Monday against Tampa. If the plan is a 50-50 split, it’s Vladar’s turn again to hold the fort against the Panthers. Vladar played each of the two previous games against Florida this season.
Veteran Panthers star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky got the night off in Nashville. The former Flyer is likely to return to the net on Wednesday.
4. Five-on-five play
The Panthers are not quite as formidable without the injured Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk. However, they are still in the middle of the NHL (tied for 14th overall) with 46 goals scored at 5-on-5 manpower. The Flyers are tied for 25th with 39 goals at full strength.
In terms of allowing goals at 5-on-5, the Flyers and Panthers are tied for 12th. Both teams have given up 41 goals in full strength situations.
