TOUGH OPPONENT IN PHILLY: The Wings have had well-documented difficulties winning in Philadelphia but beating them at home has been a challenge, too.
The Wings have lost four straight to the Flyers, including their 6-1 loss Nov. 29 at Wells Fargo Center.
"They're a good team," Athanasiou said. "They're pushing for a playoff spot so they're going to be playing good hockey. We know that. Every game down the stretch is so important for every team. You want to go out there and give them a good, hard battle and hopefully come out on top."
At 28-17-5 and 63 points, the Flyers are currently third in the Eastern Conference wild-card race behind the New York Islanders (29-15-6, 64 points) and the Carolina Hurricanes (30-19-3, 63 points).
But they're only two points behind the third team in the Metropolitan Division, the Columbus Blue Jackets, who are 28-16-9 with 65 points.
The Flyers are only allowing opponents 29.1 shots per game, third-lowest in the league.
"Outside of looking at them statistically, I don't think when you watch them play you feel like they're suffocating, they're not somebody like that," Blashill said. "I think they probably have the puck a lot, that keeps you from the shots. They're very very good on the transition, especially from their own end, so that would be one area where teams would be a little gun-shy? They front pucks well, that's another areas where you don't get as many pucks to the cage, even though you might be shooting them, and then they are very good in transition coming out of their end. It happens fast.
"That's what happened in the game there, where we actually played a great first period. I remember the breakaway goal against, it happens fast. You got to be really good about when you're putting pucks to the net you're putting them in there hard. You can't lay anything soft in there at all because they're just going to front it and their wingers are going to fly out of the zone, they're not trying to stay in the zone. If you don't have good opportunities you may have to rim it to the bottom or you might have to choose another play. We always talk about having a third circle guy between the two big circles above the hashmarks, so that guy's in position to get rebounds when they are fronted, so they're not able to just front and send it back the other way."
One reason the Flyers have the puck a lot is they have two of the top face-off centers in Claude Giroux, who is at 59.1 percent, and Sean Couturier, who is at 58.5 percent.
The Wings' top face-off center is Luke Glendening at 55.7 percent, followed by Dylan Larkin at 52.2 percent.