5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Jets

GAME NOTES
In their final game before the NHL All-Star Break, interim head coach Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (14-22-8) are home to host interim head coach Dave Lowry's Winnipeg Jets (18-16-7) on Tuesday evening. Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:00 p.m. ET (NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic).

This is the first of two meetings this season between the clubs. The teams will rematch at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg on April 27.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 4-3 overtime home win against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday afternoon. The victory ended a 13-game winless streak (0-10-3) for the Flyers and marked the first time the Flyers won a game in the 2022 calendar year to date.
Scott Laughton (7th goal of the season) scored the overtime winner on a Cam Atkinson rebound. During regulation, Atkinson potted even strength and shorthanded goals (16th and 17th) after Gerry Mayhew (3rd) opened on the scoring on the finishing end of a tic-tac-toe sequence with Morgan Frost and Rasmus Ristolainen. Carter Hart was excellent in goal, stopping 37 of 40 shots.
The Jets halted a six-game winless streak (0-4-2) of their own on Saturday with a 4-1 road victory against the St. Louis Blues. The Jets trailed early in the game but pulled even in the latter stages of the first period, scored twice in the middle stanza and then added some extra insurance in the third period.
Thirty-six-year-old veteran center Paul Stastny notched two goals (10th and 11th) for Winnipeg. Stastny's tallies in the first and third periods bookended goals by Kyle Connor (24th) and defenseman Nate Schmidt (power play, 2nd) in the second period. Connor and Mark Scheifele assisted on the Schmidt goal. Making his first start since Dec. 10, Eric Comrie stopped 28 of 29 shots to earn the win in goal.
Here are five things to watch in this game:
1. Mayhew and the "Phantoms Line"
Prior to his NHL recall in November, Flyers rookie center Morgan Frost initially played on a Lehigh Valley Phantoms line with Max Willman as one of his wingers. Later, Frost started to heat up on a line with Gerry Mayhew and veteran power forward Garrett Wilson. However, Frost and Willman continued to work together regularly on the Lehigh Valley penalty kill.
Recently, Flyers interim head coach Yeo put Frost, Mayhew and Willman together as a third-line trio for the NHL team. The line has strung together four straight strong performances with Mayhew scoring three goals, Frost elevating his pace of play and competitiveness level and Willman supporting the play effectively.
For the time being, the line will stay together. However, Frost was under the weather on Monday and did not participate in practice at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. The injury-rehabbing Derick Brassard (hip) practiced in full, taking Frost's spot on the third line and second power play unit.
Yeo indicated that, while Brassard is feeling much better, it did not make sense to rush him back into the lineup. The goal for Brassard is to return after the All-Star break.
The Flyers projected lineup against Winnipeg, subject to change, is as follows:
23 Oskar Lindblom - 28 Claude Giroux - 89 Cam Atkinson
25 James van Riemsdyk - 21 Scott Laughton - 11 Travis Konecny
20 Gerry Mayhew - 48 Morgan Frost - 71 Max Willman
76 Isaac Ratcliffe - 82 Connor Bunnaman - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 61 Justin Braun
6 Travis Sanheim - 70 Rasmus Ristolainen
3 Keith Yandle - 45 Cam York
79 Carter Hart
[35 Martin Jones]
2. "Playing with a sense of purpose"
Victory on Saturday nothwithstanding, the Flyers are mired in seventh place in the Metropolitan Division. The team is one point ahead of the New Jersey Devils and seven wins below "hockey .500". Right now, the Flyers are still looking to restore a measure of self-confidence, increased resiliency, and more consistent execution from period to period.
Even so, Saturday's game was a baby step in the right direction. Yeo was referring specifically to the fourth line combination of Connor Bunnaman, Zack MacEwen and the debuting Isaac Ratcliffe when he said the trio collectively played with a sense of purpose in that game. Collectively, they used their size effectively to bring some physicality and win some battles on both sides of the puck.
However, the same phrase also applies to what Yeo feels the Flyers team as a whole needs to do to climb back toward respectability: bring a sense of purpose and find an identity of how each line has to play in order to be successful.
Saturday's game was the first in a month in which the Flyers received contributions from up and down the lineup to supplement Hart giving the team a chance to win. It wasn't flawless, and it's never the blueprint to fail to close out a game after leading for most of regulation. However, the Flyers took over in OT and found a way to rescue a win.
With the Flyers' lineup as shorthanded as it right now, and given the overall inconsistency and streakiness displayed all season, the team is unlikely to have many artistic wins. They're all probably going to be a grind.
3. Inside the Numbers
The Flyers have scored the first goal in back-to-back games, although they let an early 2-0 lead slip away in a 4-3 road loss to the New York Islanders last Tuesday. Overall, the Flyers are 12-3-5 after scoring first in a game. As often mentioned during the 13-game winless streak, the Flyers are a mere 2-19-3 after giving up the first goal of a game.
The Jets are 12-4-4 when scoring first, and 6-12-3 when trailing first. Winnipeg, however, has been going at closing out games when they take a lead into the third period, boasting a 13-0-1 record. The Flyers have only led after two periods a mere eight times in 44 games played to date, including Saturday's game. Philadelphia is 6-0-2 in those games.
In terms of 5-on-5 play, the Jets have scored 76 goals while yielding 78 (minus-two). The Winnipeg power play checks in ranked 12th in the NHL at 20.9 percent (27-for-129) while yielding three opposing shorthanded goals. The PK enters ranked 30th in the NHL at 73.1 percent (32 opposing PPGs on 119 opportunities), The Jets have scored three shorthanded goals with Connor, Andrew Kopp and Dominic Toninato notching one apiece.
The Flyers come in to play at minus-20 in 5-on-5 goal differential (75 GF/ 95 GA). The power play is ranked 28th at 15.4 percent (19-for-123), with six opposing shorthanded goals yielded. The PK enters ranked 20th in the NHL at 77.3 percent (opponents are 30-for-132) but the Flyers have scored six shorthanded goals. Atkinson has notched three of the SHGs while Laughton has two and the injured Joel Farabee has the other.
The Jets rank in the middle of the NHL pack in puck possession metrics (13th in team Corsi at 51.2 percent of all five-on-five shot attempts and 13th in team Fenwick at 50.7 percent of unblocked shot attempts at 5-on-5). In terms of shot danger and quality, the Jets rank 17th and are just below the break-even mark at 49.9 percent of expected goal share.
The Flyers rank 22nd in team Corsi at 5-on-5 (47.48 percent) and 24th in team Fenwick (47.12 percent). The club ranks 26th in expected goal share at 5-on-5 (45.8 percent).
Winnipeg has been one of the more turnover-prone teams in the NHL this season, ranking 9th at an average 9.07 giveaways per game. The Flyers come in at 17th (7.64 per game).
4. Behind Enemy Lines: Winnipeg Jets
The Jets enter play on Tuesday six points (five standings points plus a tiebreaker disadvantage) behind the Calgary Flames for the lower wildcard seed in the Western Conference.
The Jets, however, were able to snap their six-game winless streak over the weekend and will look to end the pre-All-Star break portion of their schedule on a promising note.The Jets are winless in their past eight road games in Philadelphia, going 0-7-1.
NHL All-Star Game selection Connor leads the Jets in scoring with 24 goals and 44 points. Pierre-Luc Dubois comes in with 18 goals and 32 points. This has not been a stellar year for Scheifele (10 goals, 29 points, -10) but he's third on the team scoring list. Playmaking veteran Blake Wheeler has 18 assists among his 20 points, while Nikolaj Ehlers has posted 25 points (13g, 12a) in 34 games played. A workhorse in goal as usual, Connor Hellebuyck has appeared in 34 of the team's 41 games to date (14-14-6 record, 2.93 GAA, .909 SV%, two shutouts).
Defenseman John Morrissey has exited COVID-19 protocol for the Jets and is expected to play in this game. Morrissey has averaged 22:39 of ice time per game and chipped in 16 points (5g, 11a).
The projected Jets starting lineup, subject to change, is as follows:
9 Andrew Copp - 55 Mark Scheifele - 26 Blake Wheeler
81 Kyle Connor - 80 Pierre-Luc Dubois - 91 Cole Perfetti
25 Paul Stastny - 17 Adam Lowry - 22 Austin Poganski
12 Jansen Harkins - 21 Dominic Toninato - 93 Kristian Vesalainen
5 Brenden Dillon - 88 Nate Schmidt
14 Ville Heinola - 4 Neal Pionk
44 Josh Morrissey - 65 Johnathan Kovacevic
1 Connor Hellebuyck
[37 Eric Comrie]
5. Players to Watch: Giroux and Scheifele
An NHL All-Star for the seventh time in his career, Flyers team captain Claude Giroux leads the team with 20 assists and is tied with Atkinson for the overall scoring lead with 35 points apiece. Atkinson pulled even on Saturday with his three-point game.
On one of Atkinson's two goals, Giroux deliberately lobbed a bouncing shot on net from the neutral zone in hopes of generating a rebound. The set play worked to perfection, and Atkinson chipped the rebound upstairs from the slot for a goal. For his career, Giroux has produced 27 points (8g, 19a) in 31 games against the Jets.
After averaging a point-per-game or higher in five straight seasons, the 28-year-old Mark Scheifele is a bit behind his typical pace so far this season. However, he has posted 10 points (2g, 8a) in the 11 games since the start of January despite recently going back-to-back games in which Florida and Vancouver managed to keep Scheifele off the scoreboard in victories over Winnipeg.
The Flyers have had difficulty containing Scheifele over the years. In 13 career games against Philadelphia, he was posted 17 points (4g, 13a).