5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Rangers

Embarking on a three-game road trip, John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers (5-2-1) are in Manhattan on Tuesday to take on Gerard Gallant's New York Rangers (5-3-2). Game time at Madison Square Garden is 7:00 p.m. EDT.

GAME NOTES
The game will be televised on NBCSP. The radio broadcast is on 97.5 The Fanatic with an online simulcast on Flyers Radio 24/7.
This is the first of three meetings this season between the traditional arch-rivals. The Flyers and Rangers will rematch at the Wells Fargo Center on Dec. 17 and March 1. The Flyers went 1-3-0 against the Rangers last season.
Here are five things to watch in Monday's game:
1. Playing from ahead.
The Flyers have established that they are a more resilient team than last year. Being down 1-0 or even 2-0 does not phase the team. That's a welcomed change from 2021-22 and a positive from which to build. However, as Tortorella said after practice on Monday, "We can't keep living on that piece of property, being down 2-0, and coming back."
The Flyers have given up the game's first goal in seven of their eight matches to date. The club earned a 3-1 road win over Nashville in the lone game in which Philly scored first. In the seven games where the Flyers trailed first -- five times by 2-0 scores and twice by a 1-0 count -- the Flyers have managed to post a 4-2-1 record to date. Even in a regulation loss in Florida and Saturday's 4-3 overtime defeat at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes, the Flyers have managed to erase two-goal deficits to either tie (in Florida) or late a take a lead (against Carolina).
Moving forward, the Flyers need to answer the bell sooner and play from ahead much more often. Tortorella noted that playing with a lead can actually sometimes be more challenging because rather than "just playing and going for it", there can be concerns about protecting the lead and a danger of playing too safe. In the bigger picture, Tortorella wants to see his team come out more aggressively at the outset.
"We just seem so tentative or underconfident," Tortorella said of the club's play early in first periods so far this season. "I don't understand why we're so tentative."
Tortorella was pleased with his team's second and third period approaches in Saturday's game against the Hurricanes. He's exhorting his team to build from it against the Rangers.
2. Middle of the ice, plays from the corners.
Last game, Tortorella specifically liked how his team maintained good body and stick positioning for much of the game to take away the middle of the ice from a dangerous Hurricanes team and push them out to the perimeter. He's also been heavily stressing the need to kill plays in the defensive zone before anything dangerous can develop. A specific area of emphasis has been to prevent opponents from making plays out of the corners and getting pucks into the slot. This, Tortorella said, is where chaos ensues, opposing attackers get open and goalies either have to make very tough saves or, worse, end up with no realistic chance at making a save.
At the other end of the ice, Tortorella has been stressing the need to find more opportunities -- and then attack -- through the middle.. He was pleased that the team had a couple of Grade A chances over the middle in the third period of Saturday's game. However, the chances were not finished off with a chance to expand a 3-2 lead in a game the club ultimately dropped in overtime.
3. Provorov-DeAngelo pairing.
Ivan Provorov has been playing some of his best two-way hockey since the 2020-21 campaign. His underlying numbers do not reflect this but that's largely because the Flyers as a team have operated at a pronounced deficit in terms of their puck possession time, shot attempt differentials and expected goals. When the team can't kill plays, they do a lot of containment mode play and focus on blocking shots or, failing that, allowing their goalies a clean look at the puck. Tortorella has said that until a time comes where there's a more collectively dynamic group of forwards, the team possession numbers won't look pretty and it'll be something the club needs to work around.
On most nights, Provorov has easily passed the eye test in terms of his individual play in all three zones. The addition of Tony DeAngelo to the Flyers' roster and the blueline partnership with Provorov has thus far been beneficial to the team. Although, as a pairing, the Provorov-DeAngelo pair has been on the ice for 140 opposing shot attempts to 101 for the Flyers (a 41.91 percent Corsi share as a duo), the number actually getting on the net is fairly close to equal (64 Flyers, 69 opposing). While the on-ice save percentage is unsustainably high (95.65 percent), the bottom line for now is that the Provorov-DeAngelo duo has been out for eight Flyers goals at 5-on-5 to just three for opponents (plus-five).
Through eight games, Provorov has blocked 31 opposing shots and been credited with 18 hits. He's cut his giveaway pace in half from last season's and has a partner in DeAngelo who is adept at moving the puck up ice. Although Provorov has yet to score a goal this season, he's posted a healthy five assists to date. Meanwhile, DeAngelo has been a boon to the power play, is pulling down 24:25 of ice time per game (Provorov is at 23:37), has posted seven points (2g, 5a), blocked 19 shots and has only been charged with three giveaways while being credited with a pair of clean takeaways.
For a team that has very heavily leaned on its top three of Provorov, DeAngelo and Travis Sanheim, it's been crucial for Provorov and DeAngelo to establish some chemistry as a blueline pairing. So far, so good.
DeAngelo, of course, is an ex-Ranger who parted from the team under adverse circumstances. He'll no doubt get a not-so-warm welcome from the fans at MSG. A very emotion-driven player, there's little doubt that DeAngelo will be fired up for his first game as a Flyer against his old team. The key, as usual, is for the player to channel it in a positive play. So far, he's been a productive and valuable addition to the Flyers.
4. Lineup management.
In each of the last two games, Tortorella has significantly shortened his bench, relying very heavily on his top-six forwards, and top three D. The typical fourth line (Lukas Sedlak's) has been the de facto third line based on usage, with the Morgan Frost's line becoming the de facto fourth and skipped in various line rotations..However, with the Flyers now playing a tough back-to-back stretch on the road that will continue in Toronto on Wednesday, Tortorella may need to roll all of his lines a little more equally in one or both games.
Over the last two games, Sedlak's line has unexpectedly produced a combined three goals. That's been a nice bonus for Philadelphia this past week but it's not something they rely upon.
The Flyers have 13 healthy forwards and 7 healthy defensemen available. Egor Zamula appears poised to be scratched for the game in New York. Up front, Tortorella said he hadn't made up his mind yet about all lineup decisions.
With Tanner Laczynski returning to the team on Monday, following wife Madison's delivery on Saturday of a healthy baby boy named Leo, the Flyers now have 13 healthy forwards available. Laczynski rotated shifts at Monday's practice, sitting out the first fourth line rep as the trio of Nicolas Deslauriers, Sedlak and Wade Allison skated and then rotating in first and center and then on a wing. The game-day plan could change but Laczynski may be the Flyers' extra forward in this game.
Claimed off waivers from the New York Islanders on Thursday, Kieffer Bellows made his Flyers debut in the Carolina game. He drew a penalty that created the Flyers' first power play of the game. Overall, he skated 11:50 across 15 shifts (all at 5-on-5). He had one potential scoring chance but was blocked on his lone shot attempt on the game. Bellows is mostly known as a pure shooter but does have some physicality to his game. He was credited with three hits in his Flyers debut.
Former Ranger Kevin Hayes leads the Flyers in overall scoring with 10 points (1g,9a) through eight games. Travis Konecny paces the club in goals with four tallies among his nine points. In goal, Carter Hart is 5-0-1 with a 2.31 goals against average and .938 save percentage.
Projected Flyers lineup (subject to change)
86 Joel Farabee - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny
49 Noah Cates - 21 Scott Laughton - 74 Owen Tippett
20 KIeffer Bellows - 48 Morgan Frost - 17 Zack MacEwen
44 Nicolas Deslauriers - 23 Lukas Sedlak - 57 Wade Allison
9 Ivan Provorov - 77 Tony DeAngelo
6 Travis Sanheim - 61 Justin Braun
24 Nick Seeler - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
79 Carter Hart
[32 Felix Sandström]
Potential scratches: 58 Tanner Laczynski, 54 Egor Zamula.
PP1: DeAngelo, Tippett, Hayes, Konecny, Laughton.
PP2: Provorov, Farabee, Frost, Cates, Frost, MacEwen.
5. Behind Enemy Lines;New York Rangers
The Rangers held a full morning skate at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. The club is at home for the next full week as they face the Flyers, Bruins, Red Wings and Islanders. The Rangers took four of six points during their recent road trip as they bounced back from a 3-0 road loss to the Islanders (in the second half of a b2b that saw the Rangers get one point from a 3-2 shootout loss at MSG the prior evening). The loss in Long Island was followed by time-zone hopping road wins over Dallas (6-3) and Arizona (3-2).
The Rangers' usual suspects have led the way offensively this season. Artemi Panarin has 16 points (5g, 11a) through the season's first 10 games. Flyer-killer Mika Zibanejad has a dozen points (6g, 6a), defenseman Adam Fox has nine points (2g, 7a), and Chris Kreider has posted seven (3g, 4a). Still only 21 years old, 2020 first overall pick Alexis Lafreniere has five points to date (3g, 2a). Previously with Carolina, Rangers newcomer Vincent Trochek checks in with nine points (4g, 5a) to his credit.
New York is a team that won a lot of games last season despite unfavorable 5-on-5 possession/scoring chance analytics that suggested they over-relied on superstar goalie Igor Sheshterkin and their top-of-lineup star power. So far this season, the Rangers as a team rank sixth in 5-on-5 shot attempt differential (54.03 percent Corsi) and eighth in expected goal share at 5-on-5 (54.19 percent). The Rangers lead the NHL with 356 shots on goal to date and the Flyers are a team that yields a lot of shots goal. Hart could be a busy man in goal.
In terms of actual goals, however, the Rangers as a team are minus-two (19 GF, 21 GA) at 5-on-5.
Sheshterkin has started seven of the season's first 10 games for the Rangers (5-0-2, 2.55 GAA, .913 save percentage). The seemingly ageless Jaroslav Halak has started the other three and is off to a tough start (0-3-0, 3.69 GAA, .867 save percentage).
The Flyers of 2020-21 and 2021-22 could attest personally to the dangers posed by the Rangers when Panarin, Fox, Zibanejad and Kreider go to work on the power play. That's still the case so far in 2022-23, with the Rangers coming into this game at 23.7 percent on the power play (9-for-38). The Rangers are 79.3 percent on the PK (23-for-29). By comparison, the Flyers power play is 21.4 percent so far (6-for-28) and the PK is 80.8 percent (21-for-26).
When Rangers tough guy Ryan Reaves is on the ice against first-year Flyers counterpart Nicolas Deslauriers, there's the potential for the two veteran heavyweights to drop the gloves. They've only fought once in the NHL to date (Feb. 9, 2021 while Deslauriers was with Anaheim) and Reaves has yet to have a bout against a Flyer in his 764-game NHL career. That could very well change in Tuesday's game.
On the injury front, Filip Chytil is officially day-to-day with an upper-body (head) injury. The injury happened in the Rangers' 5-1 home loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct. 23.
Potential lineup vs. Flyers (subject to change, based on Arizona game)
20 Chris Kreider - 93 Mika Zibanejad - 24 Kaapo Kakko
10 Artemi Panarin - 16 Vincent Trocheck - 13 Alexis Lafrenière
26 Jimmy Vesey - 21 Barclay Goodrow - 12 Julien Gauthier
91 Sammy Blais - 22 Ryan Carpenter - 75 Ryan Reaves
23 Adam Fox - 55 Ryan Lindgren
8 Jacob Trouba - 79 K'Andre Miller
4 Braden Schneider - 6 Zac Jones
31 Igor Sheshertkin
[41 Jaroslav Halak]
PP1: Fox, Zibanejad, Trocheck,Panarin, Kreider.
PP2: Trouba, Lafrenière, Goodrow, Kakko, Jones