5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Capitals

In the latter half of a home-and-home set, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (17-18-7) will visit Peter Laviolette's Washington Capitals (23-15-6) at Capital One Arena on Saturday evening. Game time is 7:00 p.m. ET.

GAME NOTES
The game will be televised on NBCSP. The radio broadcast is on 93.3 WMMR with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
On Wednesday night in Philadelphia, the Flyers skated to a 5-3 home win over the Capitals. Travis Konecny became just the fourth player in Flyers history -- joining Rick MacLeish, Bobby Clarke and Mark Recchi -- to score even strength, shorthanded and power play goals in the same game. Konecny extended his current point streak to 10 consecutive games (10g, 10a, 20 points) and increased his team-leading point totals to 24 goals and 46 points. Scott Laughton notched a goal (10th) and two assists, while Owen Tippett (13th) also scored for the Flyers. Carter Hart stopped 26 of 29 shots to earn the win in goal.
For an in-depth period-by-period recap, analysis, highlights and stats from Wednesday's game, see Postgame 5: TK Gets a Hatty as Flyers Down Caps, 5-3.
Saturday's game is the final meeting of the four-game season series between the Flyers and Capitals. The Flyers are 1-1-1 to date. On Nov. 23 at Capital One Arena, the Capitals prevailed in overtime, 4-3. On Dec. 7 at the Wells Fargo Center, Washington skated to a 4-1 win.
Here are five things to watch in the season series finale on Saturday:
1. Playing with discipline.
A big key to why the Flyers have won their last two games (4-0 on the road in Buffalo on Monday and 5-3 at home against Washington two nights later) is that the Flyers avoided taking penalties against both clubs. Philly went two-plus periods against both the Sabres and the Capitals without being shorthanded and ultimately only had a single penalty kill in both games.
There were two direct benefits: 1) Both the Sabres and the Capitals boast fearsome power plays, and the Flyers staying out of the box rendered the opposing power plays a near non-factor; and 2) it enabled Tortorella to roll all four forward lines and three defensive pairs without overtaxing certain players and taking non-PK personnel out of the flow of play.
The Flyers rank 18th in the NHL at a 75.8 percent success rate on the penalty kill (opposing power plays have gone 30-for-124). The Capitals power play, at 21.9 percent success (30-for-137), ranks 16th.

Simultaneously, as the Capitals learned the hard way on Wednesday, the Flyers' PK has emerged as a legitimate shorthanded scoring threat. The Flyers lead the NHL with eight shorthanded goals scored: three by Konecny, three by Laughton, and one apiece by Noah Cates and Travis Sanheim.
Even so, the Flyers will greatly improve their chances at achieving a sweep of the home-and-home if they keep the dangerous Capitals power play units off the ice as much as possible.
2. Staying persistent
The Flyers, who have won six of their last seven games, have gradually been climbing the NHL rankings in puck possession and, recently, in shot quality as well. The team is now 25th in Corsi share (47.23 percent) and also 25th in expected goals share (45.81 percent). It may not sound impressive but the Flyers were 29th of the NHL's 32 teams in the expected goals metric and 27th in shot attempt differential as recently as Dec. 9. It's a long climb and Philly has been making it in small increments, but it's progress nonetheless. The Capitals, rank 16th in Corsi (50.66 percent) and 17th (50.77 percent) in expected goals share at 5-on-5.
On paper, the Capitals still have a significant edge over the Flyers in territorial control in an average game. However, the Flyers flipped the script in Wednesday's game. That was especially true in the first and second periods. The Flyers, by far, had the puck more than the Capitals did over the first 40 minutes of the game. Even so, the Flyers took a slim 2-1 lead into the third period. Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper was outstanding in keeping his team in the game.
Ultimately, persistence paid off. In the third period, Tippett sniped a gorgeous goal, using a defenseman as a screen and an explosive release to fire a rising shot between the defender's legs. Konecny subsequently scored on a shorthanded 2-on-1 and the Flyers had a 4-1 lead. They ultimately had to stave off a late push by the Caps that cut the gap to 4-3.
Every game plays out differently. The Flyers may not have as many scoring chances in Saturday's game as they did on Wednesday. No matter what, the Flyers will need to display similar patience and determination in attacking the Capitals as they did last game.
3. Staying resilient.
The Flyers never had to play from behind at any point of Monday or Wednesday's games, but they've done so many times this season. Philly has yielded the game's first goal in 28 of the 43 games they've played to date. In a league where the team that scores first, historically speaking, has about a 70 percent chance of winning, the Flyers are a respectable 11-12-5 in such games this season.
The Capitals are also not intimated about staging a comeback when needed. Washington is 10-11-3 when an opponent scores first. On Wednesday, trailing 4-1 in the third period, the Caps threw a real scare into the Flyers as they stormed back within 4-3 and had a couple legitimate chances at tying the game.
It all started when Marcus Johansson opportunistically collected and scored directly off an Ivan Provorov giveaway on what initially looked like it could be a 3-on-2 breakout for the Flyers. Once the deficit was sliced to 4-2, the momentum shifted from the game being under control for the Flyers to the Capitals surging and Philly just trying to hold on.
Ultimately, the Capitals took a bad penalty. They were forced to play 5-on-5 rather than 6-on-5 when they pulled Kuemper and there was a delayed penalty again on Washington that was canceled out when Konecny scored the empty net power play goal that sealed both Philadelphia's win and his hat trick.
Early in the game, Alex Ovechkin had a clean breakaway on Hart. The Flyers' goalie stoned the future Hall of Fame shoo-in; arguably the single most deadly pure goal scorer of the post-2004 era.
It's plays such as these -- and how a team responds to the white-knuckle moments and stretches of adversity -- that make a major difference in how entire games turn out. Philly handled it with aplomb on Wednesday. They'll have to do it again -- on the Capitals' home ice this time -- on Saturday.
4. Flyers Line Play.
There has not been much suspense lately as to what personnel, line combinations and defense pairs the Flyers will start in a given game. Tortorella has been pleased overall with the performance of the combos he's been using in winning seven of the past 10 games.
Thus, the Flyers will roll with the same lines again to start Saturday's game in Washington. The extra skaters will be forward Kieffer Bellows and veteran defenseman Justin Braun.
The only bit of mystery is whether Hart will start Hart in goal or go with rookie Samuel Ersson. Hart had an ordinary looking stat line on Wednesday but played very well in the victory. It was a very strong response by Hart to a subpar performance against Toronto (two stoppable goals) in his previous outing. Ersson, meanwhile, has won each of his last four starts, and shut out the Sabres on Monday.
Projected lineup (subject to change, Tortorella will confirm goalie on Saturday)
86 Joel Farabee - 49 Noah Cates - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 48 Morgan Frost - 74 Owen Tippett
13 Kevin Hayes - 21 Scott Laughton - 57 Wade Allison
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 38 Patrick Brown - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 45 Cam York
6 Travis Sanheim - 77 Tony DeAngelo
24 Nick Seeler - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
79 Carter Hart
33 Samuel Ersson
5. Behind Enemy Lines: Washington Capitals
Garnet Hathaway, T.J. Oshie and Johansson scored in the Capitals' 5-3 loss to the Flyers on Wednesday. Ovechkin, after his first period breakaway, was held quiet by his standards until the third period when he severely tested Hart a couple of times.
The Caps have points in eight of their last 10 games (6-2-2). Despite Wednesday's loss, the team still has an impressive record over the last 20 games, going 13-4-3 in that span. In the three games against the Flyers to date (2-1-0), Washington has narrowly outscored the Flyers in regulation, 9-8 (10-8 overall when overtime is included).
Laviolette was not particularly happy with his team's play the last two games. He resisted making personnel changes in Philadelphia -- the Capitals got Nicklas Bäckström and Tom Wilson back last Sunday after previously spending the entire season rehabbing from off-season surgeries, which are huge additions to the lineup but also take time to reassimilate into lineup cohesion -- but there may be some reconfiguring for Saturday.
I think we've got to play better than in our last two games," Laviolette told the Capitals official website. "I've said that. That's the game we've got to play [Saturday] in order to be successful. We've got to dictate a little more with what we're doing out on the ice.... Defensively, we've just been okay. We've let up some odd man rushes and some partial breakaways and stuff like that, I just think we can be better."
The Capitals rolled out some experimental line combinations at their last practice. Laviolette denied that the practice combos were the definitive lines to start Saturday's game, saying he'd make final decisions on Saturday. Reportedly, Anthony Mantha (a healthy scratch the last two games) was back in the regular rotation during rushes. Conor Sheary rotated reps with ex-Flyers forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Dylan Strome took some fourth line left wing reps (rotated with Johansson) with usual third-line center Lars Eller in the middle.
Potential lineup (subject to change)
8 Alex Ovechkin - 92 Evgeny Kuznetov - 73 Conor Sheary
15 Sonny Milano - 19 Nicklas Bäckström - 43 Tom Wilson
77 T.J. Oshie - 26 Nic Dowd - 39 Anthony Mantha
9 Marcus Johansson - 20 Lars Eller - 21 Garnet Hathaway
56 Erik Gustafsson - 57 Trevor van Riemsdyk
9 Dmitry Orlov - 3 Nick Jensen
27 Alexander Alexeyev - 42 Martin Fehervary
35 Darcy Kuemper
79 Charlie Lindgren
Possible scratches: 17 Dylan Strome, 96 Nicolas Aube-Kubel, 52 Matt Irwin.