5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Maple Leafs

GAME NOTES
On Wednesday, Alain Vigneault's Philadelphia Flyers (6-2-2) begin a gauntlet of three games in four nights across different cities as they host Sheldon Keefe's Toronto Maple Leafs (7-5-1). Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:30 p.m. ET (NBCSP, 97.5 The Fanatic).

After this game, the Flyers face road games against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday and the Dallas Stars the next night. The Maple Leafs are also starting a three-in-four that will take them home to Toronto on Friday to play the Calgary Flames and then back on the road the next night to play the Buffalo Sabres.
Wednesday's tilt is the first of three meetings this season between the Flyers and Maple Leafs. They won't see each other again until late in the regular season however. The teams will rematch in Philadelphia on April 2 before the scene shifts to Scotiabank Arena on April 19.
The Flyers enter this game coming off an impressive 2-1 road win over the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Philadelphia controlled the opening 40 minutes and then relied heavily on goalie Martin Jones and a key penalty kill to withstand a heavy push from Washington in the third period. Derick Brassard (2nd goal of the season) and Sean Couturier (5th) scored for the Flyers.
Toronto, meanwhile, is eager for a bounceback performance from a 5-1 home loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Monday. Goaltender Jack Campbell yielded a pair of goals on seemingly stoppable shots, which forced the Maple Leafs to have to chase the game while trailing 2-0. John Tavares (power play goal, 7th) narrowed the gap to one goal early in the second period but the Leafs never found an equalizer. The Kings restored a two-goal lead midway through the second period and then pulled away on the scoreboard in the third.
Here are five things to track in Wednesday's game:
1. Ellis Watch
A vital off-season acquisition by the Flyers, veteran defenseman Ryan Ellis made an immediate two-way impact on the team's lineup over the first three games of the 2021-22 regular season. Unfortunately, a nagging lower-body injury that Ellis suffered at the tail end of training camp flared up again. He has not played since.
On Sunday, Ellis stayed on the ice with his teammates for the duration of a "Skills Day" practice. After a teamwide off-day on Monday, Ellis was a full participant in Tuesday's practice at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. He is a game-day decision for the Toronto game.

Vigneault indicated that, even if Ellis does play in this game, he will not immediately go back to playing on the top pairing alongside Ivan Provorov and logging 22 to 25-plus minutes of all-situation ice time. Instead, Ellis will be eased back into the lineup initially because he's only had one bonafide practice since being sidelined. On Tuesday, Ellis practiced alongside Keith Yandle while Justin Braun remained paired with Provorov.
If Ellis is held out for another game, Nick Seeler will remain in the lineup alongside Yandle. Barring any further setbacks, if Ellis does not play in this game, he may alternatively re-enter the lineup over the weekend. He'll only travel with the team if there's a likelihood of being able to play.
2. Secondary Scoring, Second D Pair
Vigneault noted on Tuesday that the Flyers may not have offense-generating superstars quite the same caliber as Toronto's trio of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Tavares. Nevertheless, he believes that the Flyers have the depth to compete with any team along with a pretty formidable top end of their own lineup with Sean Couturier's line.
In each of the last three games, getting goals from different sources proved vital to the Flyers ultimately grabbing five of six possible points. Against both Arizona (insurance goal) and Pittsburgh (game-tying goal late in regulation), it was Scott Laughton who stepped up to score at vital junctures of the game. In Washington, it was a momentum-creating shift and goal by Brassard -- who had been struggling over the previous five games, along with this entire line -- that springboarded the Flyers in the second period.
In the meantime, the defense pairing of Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen had their best tandem performance of the season in the Washington tilt. Sanheim used his mobility and puck-moving skills well. Ristolainen played an amped-up version of his usual physically punishing game. A four-time 40-plus point scorer in his years with Buffalo, Ristolainen has begun jumping into the play more frequently over the last three games, and was rewarded on Saturday with his first point as a Flyer (200th career NHL assist).
Carter Hart will be back in the net for the Flyers in this game. The projected Flyers lineup in this game with/without Ellis is:
28 Claude Giroux - 14 Sean Couturier - 11 Travis Konecny
86 Joel Farabee - 19 Derick Brassard - 89 Cam Atkinson
23 Cam Lindblom - 21 Scott Laughton - 25 James van Riemsdyk
38 Patrick Brown - 44 Nate Thompson - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 61 Justin Braun
6 Travis Sanheim - 70 Rasmus Ristolainen
3 Keith Yandle - 94 Ryan Ellis or 24 Nick Seeler
79 Carter Hart
[35 Martin Jones]
3. By the Numbers
It's not a secret that Toronto relies heavily on the top end of its lineup and its special teams to win games. The team is operating thus far at a goal deficit at five-on-five. The Leafs have scored 21 goals at five-on-five but have been yielding too many (26 GA) for Keefe's liking.
The Flyers have shown improved play at five-on-five thus far, strongly emphasizing two-way support as five-man units and doing a much better job than last season at giving their goalies a chance to make saves. The Flyers are plus-nine (23 GF, 14 GA) at five-on-five thus far.
On the special teams side, the Leafs power play enters at a healthy 24.3 percent success rate (9-for-37) although it's just 2-for-14 thus far on the road. The Toronto penalty kill checks in at 85 percent to rank 9th in the NHL to date.
The Flyers enter the game at 21.4 percent on the power play (ranked 14th), which is largely buoyed by a 4-for-14 (28.6 percent) at home. Philly's PK has shown improvement in the early going of this season and comes in at 82.9 percent success overall (14th in the NHL).
Philly has scaled back recently on some of the needless and undisciplined penalties they'd been taking but still rank overall as seventh most-penalized team in the NHL.
The Flyers still rank near the bottom of the NHL in puck possession analytics. However this has largely been skewed by multiple poor second periods in which the Flyers got hemmed in for much of the frame. Philly holds a puck possession edge in first periods. In the Washington game, the Flyers held a territorial edge in both the first and second periods but spent most of the third period in defensive mode while trying to protect a two-goal (soon turned one-goal) lead.

4. Behind Enemy Lines: Maple Leafs
The Maple Leafs, commensurate with a very top-heavy salary cap structure, have gone only as far this season as the top end of their lineup has taken them: Tavares (7g, 6a), the playmaking Marner (3g, 10a), William Nylander (5g, 6a), defenseman Morgan Rielly (8a, 24:17 TOI) and, of course, all-around standout Matthews (eight points in 10 games played).
Neither centerTavares nor winger Ondrej Kase practiced with the team on Tuesday as both are, in Keefe's words, "banged up." However, despite both taking maintenance days, they traveled with the team to Philadelphia. Both players are, officially, game-day decisions.
Thus far, Toronto has been feeling the loss of Zach Hyman (now with the Edmonton Oilers); the player's tenacity around the puck, two-way reliability, ability to score timely clutch goals and agitate opposing players into getting off their game has not been fully replaced.
Around Toronto, the need for more secondary scoring is a frequent topic of Leafs-related conversation. For one thing, the Maple Leafs so far have gotten only one goal (scored by Jake Muzzin) from the blueline corps, although Rielly has compiled eight assists.
Secondly, offseason forward addition Nick Ritchie (coming off a career-high 15 goals with Boston during the shortened 2020-21 season) has yet to score a goal. Toronto is also looking for more offensive contributions from Kase (one goal). Michael Bunting, who has been on a line with Matthews and Nylander, has tallied only a single goal over the past nine games. Alex Kerfoot has scored once in his last 10 outings.
Despite goaltender Campbell's rough outing against LA, he checks into this game with a .929 save percentage, 2.09 GAA and 6-3-1 record. Ex-Flyers netminder Petr Mrazek (1-1-0, 4.20 GAA) will miss approximately four weeks with a recent groin injury. Presently, veteran Michael Hutchinson serves as Campbell's backup.
5. Players to Watch: Lindblom and Simmonds
Oskar Lindblom has gotten tired of hearing that he's doing things very well thus far process-wise (forechecking effectively, backchecking diligently, routinely winning board battles, getting himself to scoring areas inside and below the dots, killing penalties well, etc.). The player knows the Flyers need some point production from him, too. Thus far, Lindblom has yet to score a goal during the regular season and has only one assist. Linemate James van Riemsdyk, whose lone goal of the season came on a power play, is in more or less the same boat.
At this stage of his career, longtime Flyers power forward Wayne Simmonds is no longer relied upon to flirt with 30 goals a season and provided a primary netfront presence. He's still counted upon as a locker room leader, a physical presence and someone who supplies toughness and energy. That said, with the Leafs turning every stone to try to find more supplementary offense, the 33-year-old Simmonds himself (1g, 2a in 13 games) would like to chip in a few more points, too. Although his Flyers playing days ended on Trade Deadline day in 2019, he remains a fan favorite among Flyers fans and a popular figure among the remaining Philadelphia players who were his teammates.