Preseason 5 Things: Flyers @ Bruins

Playing the fourth game of their six-game preseason schedule, the Philadelphia Flyers are in Beantown on Saturday afternoon to take on Jim Montgomery's Boston Bruins. Game time is 1:00 p.m. EDT.

The game will be televised on NBCSP+. The radio broadcast is on 93.3 WMMR with an online simulcast on
Flyers Radio 24/7
.
The Flyers are 1-2-0 during the preseason to date. The Bruins are 1-1-0.
Here are five things to watch in Saturday afternoon's game.
1. Skating with energy.
New Flyers head coach John Tortorella said during his media availability on Friday that the team looked heavy-legged in Wednesday's 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals. As such, practice on Thursday was canceled. Tortorella said that the team looked much more energetic at Friday's practice.
Tortorella does not plan to scale back on the high-priority emphasis he places on skating-intensive practices during training camp -- conditioning skates have been a daily feature at camp, including Friday's sessions -- because he strongly believes it is something that pays dividends later in the season.
The Flyers clearly did not skate well or move the puck well in the latter 40 minutes of Tuesday's game in Buffalo or in Wednesday's game against Washington. They had good first periods but then their play dropped off a cliff.
Friday's practice was the first in training camp, apart from a few video sessions on game days, in which the Flyers began to install systems. Apart from some battle drills and a conditioning skate at the end, Friday's practice emphasized systems areas related to tracking, rush coverages and defensive zone play. Breakouts, offensive zone and neutral zone forecheck plus special teams will be focal points of upcoming practices.
Moving forward, as he assumes in-game coaching responsibilities behind the bench, Tortorella will focus more on systems execution and player performance (not just "try" and work ethic displayed).
2. Staying in the "A"
Friday's practice featured three practice groups, which could be deemed Groups A, B, and C (or 1, 2, and 3). Noticeably, Group A featured skaters who are either locks for the opening NHL roster or bubble players who have been standouts in camp so far and are in the thick of the battle for the remaining spots. Groups B and C were a little more randomly mixed but featured a few NHL roster bubble players and players targeted for the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Tortorella confirmed that this arrangement was no mistake, although there were still a couple of spots he felt remained somewhat interchangeable. Nonetheless, if a position player on the NHL roster bubble was not in the Group A/1 practice, he has work to do in the battle for a roster spot. Likewise, even if a bubble player was in Group A on Friday, he can't rest on his laurels.
The most notable skaters who were not participants in the Group A practice on Friday included forwards Zack MacEwen, Hayden Hodgson, Max Willman and Adam Brooks as well as defense prospect Ronnie Attard. All of these players spent at least portions of last season in the NHL.
Brooks, Hodgson, MacEwen and Willman are all on the Flyers' game day roster for Saturday afternoon's tilt in Boston. It's an important game for all four bubble players to state their case for getting into the "main" group as the camp roster continues to be reduced. Attard is also in the lineup. Saturday's game roster is as follows:

3. Line combos TBD
Cam Atkinson, who remains day-to-day with an upper body injury, has participated in practices all week on a non-contact basis. He remains in that status as of this writing and, as such, is not yet cleared to play. He will not play in Boston on Saturday. On Friday, he was on a practice line with James van Riemsdyk and Scott Laughton. Travis Konecny was with Olle Lycksell and Kevin Hayes.
In addition to Atkinson, neither Laughton nor Konecny are in Saturday's lineup for the Flyers. As such, the starting line combinations will be different from Friday's practice combos.
On Friday, Morgan Frost rotated reps at right wing (stepping in for Atkinson) and some at his customary center position. With Laughton not playing on Saturday and with Hayes, Jackson Cates and Tanner Laczynski all playing, it seems likely that Frost will center a line that includes James van Riemsdyk. Frost centered JVR and Konecny in last Sunday's scrimmage and in Tuesday's game in Buffalo.
Keep an eye on the evaluations of Laczynski and Jackson Cates. They are competing head-to-head for the fourth-line center job. Cates started out camp as a decided underdog in the roster battle but earned his "Group A" practice roster status on Friday with a very strong camp to date.
4. Stretching out the goalies
In the first game of the preseason, Felix Sandström and Troy Grosenick split goaltending duties 50-50 with Grosenick coming in midway through the second period. In the second game, Grosenick played two periods with Samuel Ersson playing the third. The next night, Sandström went 40 minutes and Ersson played the final 20.
Tortorella was asked on Friday whether Saturday's game would be the first for a goalie to go the full 60 minutes of regulation. The head coach said that decision was entirely up to goaltending coach Kim Dillabaugh.
For Saturday, Sandström and Grosenick are once again on the game roster, with veteran AHL/ECHL goalie Pat Nagle also making the trip.
Flyers No. 1 goalie Carter Hart (lower-body injury, day-to-day) has been on the ice daily this past week but is not yet cleared to play. He expects to be ready for opening night of the regular season and would like to get into at least one of the final two preseason games remaining after Saturday.
5. Behind enemy lines: Boston Bruins
Saturday's match will see the Bruins starting to incorporate more of their NHL regulars into game action. Most notably, perennial Selke Trophy candidate Patrice Bergeron and former Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall are in the Boston lineup against the Flyers.
Other notables include Jake DeBrusk, 36-year-old David Krejci (returning to the Bruins after spending last season playing in his native Czech Republic), Nick Foligno, Trent Frederic, Chris Wagner, Jakub Lauko, Tomas Nosek, Pavel Zacha and defensemen Connor Clifton and Derek Forbort.
Notables who are not in the lineup for Saturday include Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Charlie McEvoy. Charlie Coye and Brandon Carlo. Top prospect Fabian Lysell, who suited up in Philadelphia against the Flyers last Saturday, is once again in the Boston lineup for this game.