Rick Tocchet's Philadelphia Flyers (22-15-8) will try to snap a four-game winless stretch on Thursday when they are in western Pennsylvania to take on Dan Muse's Pittsburgh Penguins (21-14-10). Tonight marks the third of four meetings this season between the Metro Division arch-rivals.
Game time at PPG Paints arena is 7:00 p.m. EST. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN.
Something has to give on Thursday because both teams have had recent rough patches.
The Flyers are 0-3-1 in their last four games and have dropped out of playoff position in the Eastern Conference. The team has been outscored by a combined 19-6 margin including a 5-2 loss in Buffalo on Wednesday evening over the four-game skid.
The Penguins are 0-2-1 in their last three games. The team has done a better job than the Flyers lately at keeping the puck out of their net. However, just like the Flyers, Pittsburgh has been having trouble scoring goals over the past week. In the last three games, Pittsburgh has allowed just four goals but has only scored two. On Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Penguins via shootout, 2-1 (2-1).
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch in Thursday's nationally televised game.
1. Restoring structure
There have been numerous causes for the Flyers three consecutive regulation losses and an overtime loss that started the winless stretch. In the last three games in particular, the Flyers have misplaced the structure that enabled them to bounce back immediately from losses. Whether it's been lost or redundant coverages, turnovers in dangerous areas of the ice, opposing traffic and the net or stoppable shots that end up in the net, the three straight multi-goal losses have been deserved.
The Flyers goaltending needs to be better than it's been in the last three games. However, so does the play in front of the goaltenders. The Flyers have allowed mistakes to compound and snowball. Taking some undisciplined penalties hasn't helped matters, either, with the team struggling on both ends of special teams.
2. Between the pipes
Dan Vladar sustained an injury during the first period of Wednesday's game in Buffalo. He was slated to be re-evaluated ahead of Thursday's match in Pittsburgh. There is no morning skate with the team in the midst of a back-to-back, three-in-four nights, four-in-six stretch of the schedule. The Flyers may need to recall Aleksei Kolosov on either an emergency call-up or regular call-up basis on Thursday. Samuel Ersson played the final 40 minutes of the game in Buffalo and was the projected starter for Thursday's game before Vladar went down.
3. Special teams
The struggles of the Flyers power play and penalty kill have continued. The team generated one power play goal in Buffalo on Thursday (Trevor Zegras) but was 1-for-5 overall with a shorthanded empty net goal yielded. Buffalo was 2-for-6 on their power plays, making the Flyers minus-three for the night on special teams. Too often of late, the Flyers have allowed multiple opposition power play goals. Combined with the team's stretch of being fragile in 5-on-5 and even 4-on-4 play, the recent PK issues could hardly have arisen at a worse possible time. Clubs can work through 5-on-5 issues in given games if the special teams carry the day. When even strength, power play and penalty killing are all off-kilter at once, a return to structure is the only way to prevent a prolonged losing streak.
4. Tippett heating up?
There were few bright spots for the Flyers in Wednesday's game. However, Owen Tippett individually had a decent performance including his second goal in the last three games. Tippett tends to score in bunches when he gets on a hot streak offensively. The Flyers could use such a run from the 26-year-old winger.
