Lightning at Flyers Preview and GDT: A win can turn this trip into a success

Game #48 – Tampa Bay Lightning (24-18-5) at Philadelphia Flyers (25-16-6)
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Wells Fargo Center
Broadcast/Streaming: BSSUN, NBCSP, ESPN+, Hulu

Opponent’s Site: Broad Street Hockey

Preview

I’m not sure too many folks would have had the Flyers with more points than the Lightning at this point in the season, yet here we are. With the Lightning underwhelming a bit and the Flyers overwhelming quite a bit, it’s Philadelphia that is comfortably in a playoff spot just past the halfway point of the season while Tampa Bay is working hard to stay in the wild card race.

Working hard will be a theme in tonight’s game because you know a John Tortorella-coached team is going to make life difficult for their opponents. Shots will be blocked, the area in front of the net will be defended, and penalties will be killed off. While there may not be many household names on the Flyers’ roster, Torts has them playing an opportunistic brand of hockey that has them second in the Metro Division.

It’s been an up-and-down season for the Flyers. They were hovering around .500 before ripping off a 5-game winning streak in November. They had another streak shortly after where they won 7-out-of-8. Them they lost seven-of-nine before rocking another 5-game losing streak. They head into tonight’s game on a 2-game losing streak. Wild swings of hockey, eh?

Travis Konecny and Joel Farabee are leading the way in the points division while Owen Tippet, who is nursing an injury, is their goal leader with 18. As usual with a Torts-coached team, there aren’t a lot of superstars racking up points, but he is getting key contributions up and down the line-up. In net, the tandem of Carter Hart and Samuel Ersson has been strong as well.

On the other side of the ice, one of the things that disappointed Jon Cooper in the Lightning’s loss to the Detroit Red Wings was that he felt that they made the game too easy for the Wings. “It was an easy night for Detroit. We didn’t make it hard on them, and that’s the disappointing part.”

How can the Lightning make it a tough night for the Flyers? It starts with a strong forecheck and works back into the neutral zone. There are times when the Lightning concede a little too much ground on the ice and allow their opponents an easy entry into the zone. Once thing that was noticeable during their winning streak is that they were standing up at both blue lines. They made breakouts tough and then forced other teams to dump the puck in where the Bolts could retrieve and clear the zone easily.

Expect Andrei Vasilevskiy to be back in net. Despite the fact that he was tagged in the loss against the Red Wings, it was one of his better outings. He also loves playing in Philly (where he made his NHL debut). In his career he is 6-2 with 2 shutouts, a 1.68 GAA, and .948 SV%.

If he wants to see those numbers continue, he’ll need the players in front of him to push the pace of play. A win tonight will come from Tampa Bay dictating the action on the ice, not reacting to it.

Stats Match-up

Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines

Forwards
Steven Stamkos – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Nick Paul
Mikey Eyssimont – Tyler Motte – Conor Sheary

Austin Watson – Luke Glendening – Waltteri Merelä

Defenders
Victor Hedman – Darren Raddysh
Calvin de Haan – Nick Perbix
Emil Lilleberg – Max Crozier

Goalies
Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Philadelphia Flyers Projected Lines

Forwards
Tyson Foerster – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny

Joel Farabee – Morgan Frost – Cam Atkinson

Noah Cates – Scott Laughton – Garnet Hathaway

Ryan Poehling – Nicolas Deslauriers – Egor Zamula

Defenders

Travis Sanheim – Jamie Drysdale

Nick Seeler – Sean Walker

Cam York – Rasmus Ristolainen

Goalies
Samuel Ersson

Carter Hart

Question of the Night