5 THINGS: Flyers @ Blues

GAME NOTES
In the second game of a five-game road trip, interim head coach Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (20-32-11) are in Missouri on Thursday to take on Craig Berube's St. Louis Blues (35-18-9). Game time at the Enterprise Center is 8:00 p.m. EDT (ESPN+, Hulu, 97.5 The Fanatic).

This is the second and final meeting of the season between the teams and the lone game in St. Louis. The Flyers are 0-1-0 to date.
On Feb. 22 at the Wells Fargo Center, Oskar Lindblom tied the score at 1-1 a little more than eight minutes into the third period. However, the Blues struck back quickly and went on to defeat the Flyers, 4-1. Brayden Schenn, Vladimir Tarasenko, Ivan Barbashev (empty net) and Brandon Saad (empty net) scored for the Blues.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 6-3 road loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
Philadelphia is winless in its last 13 road games, dating back to Dec. 29.
In Tuesday's game in Detroit, Joel Farabee (13th goal of the season),Lindblom (11th) and van Riemsdyk (15th) scored in a losing cause. The Flyers narrowed a 3-0 deficit to 3-2 in the second period and a 4-2 deficit in the third period to 4-3 but never found an equalizer. As with the previous game the Flyers played against the Blues, two empty net goals made the final score look like a blowout.
For the Blues, who are coming off a 5-2 road win against the Washington Capitals, Thursday's game is the start of a three-game homestand.
The win over Washington ended a three-game losing streak for St. Louis.The Blues trailed in the first period by scores of 1-0 and 2-1 but then pulled away over the final 40 minutes. Saad (19th), Ryan O'Reilly (power play, 14th), Nathan Walker (5th), Schenn (18th), and David Perron (empty net, 22nd) scored for the Blues. Schenn also had two assists in the game. Ville Husso saw just 21 shots in the game, stopping 19.
Here are five things to watch in this game:
1. Hodgson's NHL Debut
On Tuesday in Detroit, the Flyers had just 11 forwards available and had to rotate centers. For the first time in his NHL career, Farabee took multiple shifts at center. James van Riemsdyk, who has very sporadically played center during his pro career, also took some shifts in the middle.
The Flyers are still playing short at forward. Nate Thompson (shoulder) and Scott Laughton (concussion) are awaiting medical clearance to return to play. On Wednesday, the Flyers recalled 26-year-old winger Hayden Hodgson from the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms on an emergency basis.
The 26-year-old Hodgson has been a pleasant surprise at the American Hockey League level this season. Signed by the Phantoms to an AHL contract before the season, Hodgson has mostly played in the ECHL or received AHL fourth-line duty. The Phantoms added him for depth. Instead, he worked his way up the lineup and co-leads the team in goals with 18 tallies among his 29 points in 44 games. Hodgson is a high-energy north-south player. He has found a scoring touch without sacrificing the aggressive physical game that got him signed in the first place. There have been times that he's stepped over the line -- Hodgson has been suspended three times this season by the AHL -- but the pros have significantly outweighed the drawbacks.
Earlier this week, the Flyers tore up Hodgson's AHL contract and replaced it with an NHL two-way deal for the rest of the 2021-22 season. In doing so, this made the 6-foot-2, 207-pounder eligible for NHL play this season and also prevented another NHL team from beating Philadelphia to the punch.
On Tuesday, the Flyers dressed seven defensemen, with Nick Seeler and Kevin Connauton rotating alongside Keith Yandle. If the Flyers end up going with seven defensemen again, Seeler or Connauton could see a couple shifts as wingers. Barring any as-yet-undisclosed forward injuries, however, the Flyers may go back to a standard six-man defense corps, and rotating centers in similar fashion to Tuesday (Kevin Hayes, Morgan Frost and Patrick Brown playing with various wingers plus an occasional three-winger line with Farabee or JVR serving as the defacto center).
2. Heavy Reliance on Atkinson, Farabee, Hayes, and Konecny
Even before the Flyers traded longtime captain Claude Giroux to the Florida Panthers, the team had begun to see a resurgence from the now-healthyHayes. Hayes endured nearly a full calendar year of hell both in his professional and personal life. This included two separate surgeries to repair abdominal muscle tears and then a cleanout procedure to deal with an infection that may have been related to the first surgery in May 2021. Since he's finally made it back into the Flyers' lineup, Hayes has felt and looked more like his pre-injury self on the ice.
Since his return on March 5, Hayes has played in nine games. In that span, the big center has posted nine points (4g, 5a). a plus-five at even strength and averaged 18:34 of ice time.
Farabee,who missed 18 games this season due to shoulder injuries, has also recently regained his form. Over the last nine games, he's posted 10 points (2g, 8a). This includes a pair of goals and seven points overall in the last five games.
Meanwhile, Konecny has been on assist binge in the 18 games since the All-Star Break, with 13 helpers among his team leading 15 points in that span. Goals have remained elusive all season for Konecny, who has registered 20 shots on goal in his last six games, but he's taken over the team assist lead from now-former teammate Giroux. Despite only scoring 10 goals to date this season, Konecny is second on the team in overall scoring with 40 points (10g, 30a) in 61 games played.
Even before Giroux was traded but especially now, the Flyers have leaned heavily on Cam Atkinson to supply offense and leadership by example. He enters this game leading the team in goals (23) and overall points (48). In the 18 games since the NHL All-Star break, Atkinson has posted six goals and 12 points. A streak scorer, Atkinson has posted at least one point in seven of the last nine games (5g, 4a).
James van Riemsdyk has posted a point in four of the last five games (2g, 2a) but the Flyers could use more overall from the veteran winger. He has eight points (4g, 4a) in 18 games since the All-Star break. For the season, JVR has 26 points (15g, 11a) and is -28 while dressing in all 63 games the Flyers have played this season. Oskar Lindblom, who only had one point (0g,1a) on the season at the time of the coaching change from Alain Vigneault to Mike Yeo, was slumping again recently but scored a big goal in the Detroit game to bring the Flyers back within 3-2. As with van Riemsdyk, Lindblom has eight points in his last 18 games.
3. Inside the Numbers: Primary Stats vs. Underlying Numbers
There are many reasons why the St. Louis Blues have collected 79 standings points this season while the Flyers have a meager 51 points to date. However, a quick glance at the teams' comparative puck possession and shot quality analytics does not show much of a difference. In terms of 5-on-5 shot attempt differentials (team Corsi), the Blues rank 22nd (47.6 percent) in the NHL and the Flyers rank 27th (46.7 percent). In terms of shot quality diffentials (medium- and high-danger scoring chances for and against), the Blues rank 25th (46.9 percent share) and the Flyers rank 26th (46.9 percent).
However, there has been a massive difference in the bottom line for both teams. The Blues are +27 (143 GF - 116 GA) at 5-on-5 while the Flyers are -20 (116 GF - 136 GA). On the power play, the Flyers rank at the very bottom of the NHL (13.7 percent success rate, ranked 32nd), while the Blues rank third (26.3 percent). In actual goals, this translates to St. Louis notching 47 tallies on the man advantage to just 25 for the Flyers.
In terms of closing out games vs. being closed out by an opponent, one need only look at what happened the last time the Flyers played the Blues and the way St. Louis restored a one-goal lead and then scored a pair of empty-net goals after the game was tied at 1-1 with a little less than 12 minutes remaining in regulation. That was a microcosm of the season. The Flyers have been outscored in third periods by a 51-76 margin while St. Louis holds an 80-61 goal margin in their favor in third periods. In fact, while second periods were the biggest bane to the Flyers' existence up through the All-Star Break, it's now the third period in which the Flyers have their biggest goal deficit: minus-17 in second periods (55 GF - 72 GA) versus minus 25 (51 GF - 76 GA) in third periods.
A big part of this discrepancy is just how poorly the Flyers have fared when pulling their goalie for a desperation push when trailing late in the third period. The Flyers have only scored two 6-on-5 goals all season while yielding an NHL-worst 19 empty-net goals. The Blues have scored five times at 6-on-5 while allowing eight opposing empty-netters. In terms of sealing the deal when a trailing opponent pulls its goals, the Flyers also rank dead last in the NHL with just four empty-netters (three fewer than Ottawa, Boston or Chicago) while the Blues have turned 15 opposing empty-net situations into goals (tied for 7th in the NHL).
Objectively, Blues have a deeper and more balanced roster than the Flyers' (see next section). That's why their primary team numbers are so much better than the Flyers.

4. Behind Enemy Lines: St. Louis Blues
The Blues enter play on Thursday holding second place in the Central Division. With 79 points overall but just a 3-4-3 record over their last 10 games, the team has lost a little ground to the third-place Minnesota Wild (78 points, 6-3-1 in their last 10 games) and the fourth-place Nashville Predators (78 points, 7-3-0 over the last 10 games).
St. Louis is not going to catch the Colorado Avalanche (95 points) for first place, nor do they have much to worry about at present in terms of dropping below the playoff cutoff line. The goal down the regular stretch is to lock in a guaranteed home-ice spot in the first round by maintaining second place in the Central. Minnesota currently holds one game in hand over the Blues, while St. Louis has two games in hand over Nashville.
Coming into Thursday's game, Jordan Kyrou holds the Blues' scoring lead with 61 points (22g, 39a). Having a resurgent season after coming in with major injury-related concerns, Vladimir Tarasenko has posted 20 goals and 54 points in 55 games played. Pavel Buchnevich has 19 goals among his 48 points while Robert Thomas has 38 assists among his own 48 points. Veteran David Perron (22 goals, 42 points) is one of three Blues forwards along with Kyrou and Tarasenko who has attained the 20-goal milestone this season. Ivan Barbashev has 19 goals, 44 points and 110 credited hits this season. Schenn has been limited to 46 games this season but has posted 42 points (18g, 24a) and perennial Selke Trophy candidate Ryan O'Reilly has 14 goals and 40 points in 58 games.
To summarize, that's eight St. Louis players who have already posted 40 or more points. Brandson Saad (19g, 36 points) is within striking distance of becoming the ninth by the end of March or in early April. By comparison,excluding the now-departed Giroux, the Flyers only have two players (Atkinson and Konecny) who have reached the 40-point mark on the season.
On the blueline, offensive minded defenseman Torey Krug leads with 35 points and co-leads with eight goals, Justin Faulk co-leads with eight goals and leads with a traditional +24 rating and 126 credited hits, while Colton Parayko tops the defense corps with an average 24:05 of ice time and 136 blocked shots. The Blues acquired veteran defenseman Nick Leddy from Detroit at the trade deadline. Third-pair defenseman Robert Bortuzzo (55 GP, 13:45 TOI) has 102 credited hits this season.
The Flyers, who are 18th in the NHL in save percentage but 25th in team goals against average, have actually received better goaltending this season overall from Carter Hart and Martin Jones than the Blues have gotten from Jordan Binnington (13-12-4, 3.11 GAA, .903 SV%, two shutouts). Husso has posted a record of 16-5-4 with a .925 save percentage, 2.33 GAA, and two shutouts.
5. Players to Watch: Tippett and Perron
Acquired from Florida last Saturday in the Giroux trade, Owen Tippett is set to play his third game as a Flyer. Tippett had a strong Flyers debut on Sunday against the New York Islanders, showing potential chemistry with Morgan Frost. Tippett also had a few good shifts, including a near goal through a Frost screen, in Tuesday's game against the Red Wings. Overall, Tippett was a little better in his first game than his second.
Tippett and Frost could really use a puck or two going in for them; both for their own offensive self-confidence and for the benefit of the team. Yeo praised Frost's all-around performances at center after each of the last two games, but the highly skilled forward has really scuffled for points at the NHL level this season. Ditto Tippett, who is also working to improve his off-puck play. Both players have been up-and-down from the NHL to AHL and back this season.
Conversely, David Perron has been scorching hot of late for the Blues. He brings a seven-game point streak into this contest. Over that span, Perron has racked up 10 goals and 13 points. That run includes a hat trick and an assist against Columbus last Saturday. Perron has scored at least one goal in each of the last seven games and at least one goal in 10 of his last 11 games.
Hockey being hockey, Perron's torrid stretch came after a stretch of having scored just one goal and five points in 16 games from Jan. 5 to Feb. 25.