5 THINGS: Flyers @ Jets

In their final road game of the 2021-22 season, interim head coach Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (25-44-11) are in Manitoba on Wednesday to take on interim head coach Dave Lowry's Winnipeg Jets (36-32-11). Game time at the Canada Life Centre is 7:30 p.m. EDT (
NBCSP
, 97.5 The Fanatic).

This is the second and final meeting of the season between the teams and the lone game in Winnipeg. At the Wells Fargo Center on Feb. 1, the Flyers skated to a 3-1 victory. The game was tied at 1-1 entering the latter stages of the third period before James van Riemsdyk tallied what proved to be the game-winning goal at 15:51. Carter Hart stopped 32 of 33 shots to earn the win in goal.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 3-1 road loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday. The Flyers killed off five penalties successfully but it took them out of any sort of 5-on-5 rhythm (Philly had four power plays of their own, going 0-for-4).
Three Flyers turnovers proved costly as they turned into transition goals for Chicago. Philly trailed 2-0 early and the team was never able to draw even. Kevin Hayes (10th goal of the season) notched the lone Flyers tally, converting a 2-on-1 pass from Scott Laughton into a goal.
The Jets, like the Flyers, will not make the Stanley Cup playoffs this season. The team had lost seven of its previous nine games (2-6-1) before earning a 4-1 upset home win at the expense of the regular season Western Conference champion Colorado Avalanche on Sunday.
Workhorse Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck achieved his 200th career NHL regular season win as he carried a shutout for 55 minutes and finished with 30 saves on 31 shots against one of the league's No. 3 ranked offense. The game was scoreless until Colorado's J.T. Compher put the Avalanche ahead, 1-0, at 5:03 of the third period.
Four minutes later, however, Adam Lowry (13th goal of the season) knotted the score on a deflection goal. Blake Wheeler (14th) made it 2-1 with a rebound tally at 10:23 and then Kyle Connor's 45th goal of the season opened a two-goal lead for Winnipeg as he scored off the rush at 12:25. Nikolaj Ehlers (27th) added further insurance with a goal at 16:18 scored directly off a Paul Stastny faceoff win. The Jets generated 44 shots on goal overall against Colorado's Darcy Kuemper.
Here are five things to watch in Wednesday's game.
1. Farabee Needs to Finish Strong.
It's easy to forget sometimes that Flyers forward Joel Farabee is still only 22 years old. He is remarkably mature on and off the ice for someone his age. Farabee is a solid two-way player and still has a chance at his second 20-goal campaign of his three-season NHL career.
That does not make him immune, however, from the same highs and lows in confidence that the majority of young players (and even veterans) experience. Farabee, of late, has unquestionably been struggling.
Pointless over his last five games, Farabee has just two points (2g, 0a) over his last 13 games and is an uncharacteristic minus-14 in on-ice goal differential in that span. In Monday's game in Chicago, two Farabee turnovers ultimately ended up in the Philadelphia net.
How much, if any, of Farabee's issues over the last few weeks are due to being banged up from several hard hits he's taken that left him shaken up (although he stayed in to play)? How much is due to feeling his way through an experiment of a position change to center? The overall responsibilities are different and, in many ways, more demanding for a center. However, it should be noted that Farabee also struggled when moved back to left wing for a few games.
Above all, Farabee has seemed of late to be overthinking and pressing. It's been a trying season for everyone. Farabee, who has a strong desire to take on a more prominent leadership role for the post-Giroux team, appears to be putting too much pressure on himself to spur the team to a strong finish. He also dealt with a shoulder injury earlier this season and has not seemed physically "right" for some time.
Overall, Farabee has posted 17 goals, 17 assists and 34 points while dressing in just 61 of the 80 games played so far. From a mental standpoint if nothing else, it would be a lift for the player if he can close out this season with bounceback performances against Winnipeg and Ottawa.
2. Collegiate Signees Getting an Education
It has only been a few weeks since defenseman Ronnie Attard and forwards Noah Cates and Bobby Brink completed their respective 2021-22 NCAA seasons; in Brink's case, by winning the national championship with the University of Denver and leading all of Division 1 in overall scoring. Nonetheless, since signing their entry-level contracts with the Flyers within a day of the end of their seasons, the three young players have been getting a crash course in just how grueling the NHL schedule can be.
On Wednesday, Attard will play his 14th game since joining the team. The offensive-minded and aggressive blueliner had a rough NHL debut and a couple other moments where he did not look NHL-ready. However, he's improved significantly on a game-by-game basis especially in terms of not getting himself on the wrong side of the puck and in better using his big frame with less reliance on do-or-die stick check attempts.
Offensively, Attard has scored a seeing-eye goal and a tally on a perfectly placed shot under the crossbar from the right circle. He's also collected a pair of assists including one on a gorgeous stretch pass. Attard is a gifted athlete. There's still plenty of learning curve ahead but Attard is adjusting well. Plus-minus is a limited stat, but it's still notable that Attard is plus-seven over his last five games.
Brink will play in his 9th game. More playmaker than pure goal-scorer, he's posted four assists so far including two nifty helpers in the Flyers' win in Montreal last Thursday. The last two games, especially the Chicago match, have not gone nearly as well. Brink struggled to get puck touches in the Chicago game and struggled playing the bumper spot on the No. 1 power play unit. At the end of the Flyers' first power play, a Brink turnover led directly to a Jonathan Toews breakaway goal as the Chicago captain exited the penalty box.
Brink appears to need further adaptation to the physical demands of the pro game; he competes willingly despite his severe lack of size (5-foot-8, 166 pounds) but sometimes seems to have more jump early in games than later on. This is a normal adjustment for a large percentage of players who go right from college to the NHL late in a season. The player's puck skills and ice vision have been evident in his brief NHL tenure to date.
Of all three collegiate draftees who've recently joined the Flyers, Cates is the one who has displayed the most NHL-ready and mature all-around game. He's tenacious in all three zones and has been a difference maker on the forecheck, in the neutral zone and in working hard to help get the puck out of the defensive zone. He lacks blazing speed, but Cates goes to the right areas and has good hands. In 14 games played to date, Cates has contributed four goals and nine points.
Over the last three games, Cates has played at 5-on-5 on a line with Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett. The trio has combined for four goals, several other high-end scoring opportunities and strong underlying puck-possession shares for the team. Cates scored two deflection goals -- both on sequences started by Frost -- in Sunday's 4-1 win over Pittsburgh and also assisted on Frost goals against Montreal and the Penguins.
However, in Monday's game in Chicago, the heavy concentration of special teams play and a teamwide flat latter half of the second period ended up with several players more or less getting "lost" in the line rotations in the third period. One night after earning first-star honors against Pittsburgh, Cates wound up skating only two shifts in the third period and totaled 14 shifts and 10:11 TOI in the game.
That was not due to poor play on Cates' part but due to line combo juggling in between frequent special teams play. Cates is part of the PK unit but has only been mixed in sparingly on the power play (although his second goal against the Penguins was on a power play where he replaced JVR late in the man advantage). The Flyers also had a lengthy late-game 6-on-5 against Chicago with goalie Felix Sandström pulled. This is a situation where Cates isn't on the ice.
With the Flyers having played back-to-back on Sunday and Monday, the team did not practice the next day. The Flyers have started each of the last three games with the same line combos, although there was some mixing-and-matching in the Chicago game such as Laughton centering Oskar Lindblom and Tippett on one full shift. Assuming the Flyers start Wednesday's game with the same units that started against Montreal, Pittsburgh and Chicago, it would look like this:
21 Scott Laughton - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny
25 James van Riemsdyk - 86 Joel Farabee - 46 Bobby Brink
49 Noah Cates - 48 Morgan Frost - 74 Owen Tippett
23 Oskar Lindblom - 44 Nate Thompson - 17 Zack MacEwen
9 Ivan Provorov - 47 Ronnie Attard
84 Linus Högberg - 6 Travis Sanheim
3 Keith Yandle - 54 Egor Zamula
35 Martin Jones
32 Felix Sandström
PP1: Konecny, Hayes, Farabee, Brink, Sanheim
PP2: Frost, Laughton, JVR, Tippett, Provorov
3. Inside the Numbers
The Flyers have fared horribly in games against fellow Eastern Conference teams this season, going 11-30-8. Even with the loss in Chicago, Philadelphia is at the even-water mark against the West with a 14-14-3 mark. A win or a regulation loss in Winnipeg would move Philly either slightly above or down below the .500 points percentage mark for the season in interconference games. The Jets have gone 10-19-2 against the East.
There have been years with the Jets have been an especially tough team to beat on home ice. That has not been the case to the same degree the last few seasons. This season, Winnipeg does have a winning home record (20-15-3) compared to a losing record on the road (16-17-8) but it has not been a huge difference despite losing each of the last four away from the Canada Life Centre. However, it's also notable that if the Jets win all three of their remaining home games, they'd finish with a .598 points percentage at home, which would be the club's best home record by points percentage over the past three seasons.

The Flyers, as has been often mentioned, have had massive difficulties coming back in games where they trail. Philly is 5-35-4 (Winnipeg is 14-22-5) when an opponent scores first, although Philly managed the feat in the previous meeting this season against the Jets. Philly is the only team in the NHL that is winless (0-39-1) when trailing by two goals at any juncture of a game. If trailing after two periods, the Flyers are 2-34-4. If tied after two periods, the Flyers are 9-9-4. The Feb. 1 game against the Jets was tied at 1-1 at the second intermission.
4. Behind Enemy Lines: Winnipeg Jets
The Jets, who have played 79 games to date, are finished on the road for the season. All three remaining games are at home. With the team eliminated from the playoffs, the biggest intrigue left is to see how close Connor can get to the 50-goal mark on the season. He'd need to score five times over the final three games; unlikely but not impossible. Connor is currently fifth in the Rocket Richard Trophy race.
Earlier this season, Ehlers set a new franchise record with a 12-game point streak at home (10g, 6a). He'd need a point in each of the three remaining games to finish 2021-22 with a seven-game home point streak. Over his current four-gamer on home ice, Ehlers has posted six points (4a, 2a).
In the last game against Colorado, Jets defenseman Neal Pionk (34 points this season) was on the receiving end of a heavy but clean body check by ex-Flyers winger Nicolas Aube-Kubel. Unfortunately, the impact of the hit into the boards resulted in a nasty cut across Pionk's nose from his visor. Pionk, who leads the team with three assists over the last five games, remained in the game and is fine to play against the Flyers.
With the Jets out of the playoff chase, Hellebuyck has been rested a few times. He'd otherwise be starting almost every game. Backup goalie Eric Comrie started the games against the New York Rangers on April 19 and the Carolina Hurricanes on April 21. In a losing cause, Comrie turned aside 42 of 45 shots against Carolina last Thursday. The 26-year-old has posted a 0.940 save percentage in his past three outings but only has two regulation defeats and a relief no-decision to show for it.
Pierre-Luc Dubois leads the Jets this season with 14 power play goals among his 27 overall tallies. For the season, Dubois has 58 points and 106 penalty minutes. Veteran forwards Mark Scheifele and Stastny have also surpassed the 20-goal mark this season. The subject of a host of trade rumors, Scheifele (29 goals, 70 points in 67 games, minus-17) is dealing with a suspected shoulder injury and appears unlikely to play again this season.
Potential starting lineup (subject to change):
27 Nikolaj Ehlers - 25 Paul Stastny - 26 Blake Wheeler
81 Kyle Connor - 80 Pierre-Luc Dubois - 12 Jansen Harkins
36 Morgan Barron - 17 Adam Lowry - 22 Mason Appleton
77 Adam Brooks - 21 Dominic Toninato - 71 Evgeny Svechnikov
44 Josh Morrissey - 2 Dylan DeMelo
54 Dylan Samberg - 5 Brenden Dillon
64 Logan Stanley - 4 Neal Pionk
37 Connor Hellebuyck
1 Eric Comrie
5. Players to Watch: Sanheim and Morrisey
Enjoying arguably the best all-around individual season of his NHL career despite the highly disappointing performance of the Flyers as a whole, Manitoba native Travis Sanheim has posted seven goals and 31 points this season, along with a traditional plus-10 rating. He's logged heavy ice time, especially of late with so many injuries on defense, and has averaged 22:59 TOI for the season. Sanheim has also blocked 139 shots this season. In some recent games, he's even pulled down a little more total ice time than Ivan Provorov (the overall leader at 24:52). Although he'll never be a crusher and will always rely primarily on his feet and defensive stick as the core of his game, the lanky 6-foot-3 Sanheim has been a little bit more physically assertive of late.
On the Winnipeg side, defenseman Josh Morrissey has posted a dozen goals (including six on the power play), 35 points and averaged 23:42 of ice time per game. Morrissey has recorded 100 blocked shot and been credited with 150 hits.