5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Rangers

GAME NOTES
Looking to snap a six-game winless streak, interim head coach Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (13-16-7) will host Gerard Gallant's New York Rangers (24-10-4) on Saturday evening. Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:00 p.m. ET (NBCSP, 93.3 WMMR).

This is the second of four meetings this season between the traditional arch-rivals, and the first of two at the Wells Fargo Center. The teams will rematch on April 3 at Madison Square Garden and complete the season series in Philadelphia on April 13.
On December 1 at MSG, the Rangers prevailed by a 4-1 score. A second period tally by Morgan Frost cut a 3-0 deficit to two goals but the Flyers drew no closer. Jacob Trouba (power play), Dryden Hunt, Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin (empty net) scored for the Blueshirts. Carter Hart stopped 24 of 27 shots in a losing cause, while Igor Sheshterkin made 33 saves on 34 shots for the victorious Rangers.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 3-2 road loss to the Boston Bruins on Thursday. Special teams ultimately decided the game, Boston went 2-for-4 on the power play, including a 5-on-3 goal that broke a 2-2 deadlock in the second period. The Flyers went 1-for-4 but failed on a lengthy 5-on-3 and then a 6-on-5 with a chance to tie the game in the third period.
David Pastrnak recorded a hat trick for the Bruins; the third of his career against the Flyers. After trailing 2-0 entering the second period, goals by Cam Atkinson (PPG, 15th) and Joel Farabee (11th) tied the score at 2-2 before Pastrnak (16th) completed a hat trick on a 5-on-3 power play goal.
Hart deserved a better fate in the Boston game. He had little chance of stopping any of Pastrnak's goals and stepped up multiple times to keep the game within reach. Overall, Hart stopped 33 of 36 shots in a losing cause.
The Metro Division leading Rangers have posted points in seven of their last 10 games (6-3-1) and have won three of their last five matches. The team enters this game coming off a four-game western road trip that saw the team win twice and lose twice.
The trip finished on a strong note, however. On Thursday, the Rangers earned a 3-0 shutout victory over the San Jose Sharks. A Kreider shorthanded goal midway through the first period stood up as the only goal the Rangers would need. In his NHL debut, rookie Braden Schneider added to the lead in the third period before Kreider notched an empty-net goal in the final minute. Sheshterkin stopped all 37 shots he faced.
Here are five things to watch in this game:
1. Answering the bell.
The Flyers have more than half of their regular season schedule yet to be played -- 46 games to be precise -- but already face very daunting math in the Eastern Conference standings. The team's previous 10-game winless streak and the current six-game winless skid have buried Philadelphia 12 points (11 standings points plus a tiebreaker disadvantage) behind Boston for the final playoff spot.
Right now, all the Flyers can focus on in trying to establish a measure of respectability. It starts by not getting caved on puck possession or chasing the game on the scoreboard. The Flyers went down swinging in Boston -- right up to Cam York hustling to prevent a Brad Marchand empty net attempt in the final seconds of the game -- but the bottom line is that they still went down to defeat.
Flyers record when scoring first: 11-2-5
Flyers record when trailing first: 2-14-2
Falling behind the Rangers is an especially daunting proposition. The club is 15-1-2 when scoring first. Even when trailing first the Rangers are 9-9-2 (tied for the NHL's seventh-best points percentage after giving up the game's first goal).
2. Sustainability.
It is the rare night when any team -- regardless of its record -- is able to simply impose its will against an opponent for all three periods. More realistically, though, good teams set an early tone of swarming opponents and supporting the puck. The best clubs swarm on the forecheck and defend in layers as five-man units. When an opponent inevitably makes a bit of a push, a top team can go into bend-but-don't-break mode for a few shifts and then resume dictating the play.
The Flyers in 2019-20 were able to do these things. Last season and this season, they have yet to do so on any sort of sustained basis. When things have gone wrong, the issues tend to snowball. Philadelphia has been too reliant on too many nights for Hart or Martin Jones (plus, in his lone NHL start, prospect Felix Sandström) to keep them in the game.
Sporadically, the Flyers have defended well. They've also periodically had segments of games where they established a forecheck and generated more than an isolated scoring chance here and there. But it's rarely been sustained. Even most of the team's seven-game point streak in between the 10-game and current six-game winless stretches were driven primarily by strong goaltending and by an uptick in opportunistic offense.
Bottom line: Thirty-six games into the 2021-22 the Flyers are still trying to establish and replicate an underlying process. Without that, it's hard to get good results regardless of who is in or out of the lineup. It also renders secondary issues such as starting line combinations because they tend to be quite transitory.
The Flyers did not hold a practice on Friday. They will hold a morning skate (at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees) ahead of this game.
3. Inside the Numbers
The Rangers are 14-7-2 on the road this season. On home ice, the Flyers are 7-9-4.
It is worth noting that the Rangers have been an "underlying statistics" anomaly this season.
The Rangers actually rank last in the NHL (32nd) in terms of shot attempt differentials at 5-on-5, bringing a 44.1 percent team Corsi into this game. They rank 30th in all-manpower situation Corsi (45.5 percent). Philly ranks 24th in all-situation Corsi (47.6 percent) and 26th at 5-on-5 (47.3 percent).
Shot attempt volumes are one thing, shot quality can be another. However, neither the Rangers nor Flyers are statistically doing well in their so-called "expected goals" differentials.
Philly ranks 30th at 5-on-5 (45.47 percent) and also 30th across all manpower situation (44.21 percent). New York ranks 29th at 5-on-5 (45.5 percent expected goal share) and 21st (49.15 percent) across all situations.

So why do the Rangers. with such lackluster underlying stats, have the 3rd-best record in the NHL entering this game and the Flyers come in at 24th with largely similar underlying numbers? Three reasons:
1) Sheshterkin is having a Vezina Trophy caliber season in goal (16-4-2, 1.99 GAA, .939 SV%) and the Rangers' team 2.45 GAA ranks 2nd in the NHL;
2) What's NOT shown in the Corsi and even expected goals numbers is that a lot of the opposing volleys never get on net. The Rangers block the 4th-most shots in the NHL (15.22 per game average) and consequently, rank only a shade below the league average in opposing shots in goal (31.7). By comparison, no teams' goalies are bombarded with more rubber than the Flyers' Hart and Jones. The Flyers' average 35.1 shots on goal allowed per game ranks worst in the NHL.
3) Special teams: The Rangers bring the NHL's third-best penalty kill (85.3 percent) and 10th-ranked power play (22.7 percent) into this game. The Flyers have the 26th-ranked power play (16.5 percent) and their net percentage is even worse because they've coughed up six shorthanded goals. The Flyers' PK had been a strength most of the season but has slipped of late and enters the game ranked 19th at 78.8 percent.
Add up these factors, and that's how the Rangers have been able to better overcome their otherwise worrisome underlying stats and having yielded 66 opposing 5-on-5 goals vs. the 65 they've scored.
4. Behind Enemy Lines: New York Rangers
Defending Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox is having another Norris-caliber season this year. He leads the Rangers with 37 points (5g, 32a) and a traditional plus-11 rating.
Although veteran superstar Artemi Panarin has missed five games this season, he leads all Rangers forwards with 36 points (10g, 26a). The 30-year-old was held off the scoresheet in his team's games in Los Angeles and San Jose but is bound to heat up again.
Kreider leads the Rangers in goals with 23 tallies among his 34 points. Top-line center Mika Zibenajad (13g. 21a) has tortured the Flyers for the last season-plus. Ryan Strome checks in with eight goals and 27 points in 34 games played this season. Two-way defenseman Jacob Trouba (22:20 TOI, six goals and 16 points) is the backbone of the blueline along with Fox.
The aforementioned group, back-stopped by Sheshterkin, is the core of the New York lineup. However, the Rangers are being patient -- and can afford to be, given their formidable group of stars -- through the early-career ups and downs of 20-year-old Alexis Lafreniere (11 points in 37 games), nearly 22-year-old Kaapo Kakko (13 points in 34 games) and 22-year-old Filip Chytil (10 points in 34 games).
In the meantime, highly regarded 21-year-old defenseman K'Andre Miller has logged an average 19:26 of ice time while dressing in every game to date in his second NHL season since turning pro after his sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin.
5. Players to Watch: Giroux and Zibanejad
Flyers captain Claude Giroux will play in his second game since returning from COVID-19 protocol. The Flyers' leading scorer this season with 29 points (11g, 18a) in 33 games played, Giroux celebrated his 34th birthday on January 12. On Thursday, he was named to the NHL All-Star Game for the seventh time in his career.
Any of the New York players mentioned in item four is eminently capable of burning the Flyers. The offensive engine runs via the creativity and puck skills of Panarin and Fox. In the meantime, the Flyers have had no answers for defending Zibanejad -- who has often had nearly free reign in the scoring areas -- the last couple years. In his most recent nine games against the Flyers, the Swedish center has racked up 19 points (7g, 12a). Last season, Zibanejad brutalized Philly for 18 of those points.