Who: Philadelphia Flyers (22-15-8, 52 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (21-14-10, 52 points, 4th place Metropolitan Division)

How to Watch: Nationally televised game on ESPN, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens get one more at home after this to see Columbus at PPG Paints on Saturday night. Then it’s a long trip out to Seattle for a 5pm eastern game on Monday that provides very little turnaround time. The Pens will stay out west next week with games with further games in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver before returning home as they knock out the Pacific Northwest portion of their schedule in the coming days.

Opponent Track: Like, seriously, the Penguins are going to see yet another team on the second-half of a back-to-back. The past few weeks has been incredibly fortunate for Pittsburgh to face multiple teams in a tough situation like that. Anyways, the Flyers were in Buffalo last night, where they lost 5-2. They’re currently on a four-game losing streak (0-3-1). The Flyers have been cooling off since Christmas, with only a 3-5-1 record since the break.

Season Series: This it Penguins/Flyers Round 3 for the season. Pittsburgh’s record is 1-0-1 so far (Philadelphia won a shootout on October 27th, the Pens won the rematch 5-1 on December 1st). The Flyers return to Pittsburgh on March 7th for one more game.

Hidden Stat: The Penguins have points in 10-consecutive home games against Philadelphia (8-0-2) dating back to March 6, 2021 (stick tap to Pens PR).

Getting to know the Flyers

Matvei Michkov – Sean Couturier – Carl Grundstrom

Trevor Zegras – Christian Dvorak – Travis Konecny

Nikita Grebenkin – Noah Cates – Owen Tippett

Nic Deslauriers- Rodrigo Abols – Garnet Hathaway

Travis Sanheim / Rasmus Ristolainen

Cam York / Jamie Drysdale

Nick Seeler / Emil Andrae

Goalies: Samuel Ersson (Dan Vladar played yesterday, and got hurt)

Potential scratches: Denver Barkey, Noah Juulsen, Bobby Brink

Injured Reserve: Tyson Foerster

Vladar gave up two goals in the first period against Buffalo last night and then left the game with injury, forcing Ersson in for the last 40 minutes. Ersson does have a 4-2-1 career record against Pittsburgh but just a 3.06 GAA and .886 save%. Either he’ll have to play again tonight or Philadelphia will have to call up a goalie like Aleksei Kolosov from the minors, depending on Vladar’s status. Ersson is only 2-5-2 in his last nine decisions with a 3.55 GAA and .852 save%, so you’d excuse them for opting for a minor league goalie to play tonight given the struggles there.Philadelphia tends to change lines a lot, this is the healthiest they’ve been in a while after having Konecny and Drysdale recently return to the lineup…You may remember Foerster left the game against the Penguins collapsing after attempting a shot, it ended up being very bad news and he underwent surgery on his arm and is out for the rest of the season after a summer surgery on his arm as well.

(note: does not include last night’s game)

I feel like a big difference between the Penguins and Flyers can be summed up by when Anthony Mantha has a good start to the season on a one-year contract, the Penguins say “cool”; when Christian Dvorak has a good start to the season on a one-year contract the Flyers sign him up immediately to a five-year extension.You can see why Rick Tocchet’s being mentioned as a potential Jack Adams candidate by having this type of roster positioned well through the first 45 games of the season. Not a team devoid of talent, but they don’t have many consistently above-average performers either.One of the reasons the Flyers have been one of the bigger surprises in the first half of the season around the league was the play of Vladar, who frankly was one of the biggest shockers for stepping up and providing quality goaltending out of nowhere considering a mediocre track record in the NHL entering this season. Vladar was 10-4-1 with a .912 save% entering the game against the Penguins on 12/1, perhaps at his zenith. Since then, it’s been downhill winning only six of 12 games (6-3-3, and last night’s injury likely let him off the hook of another loss since Ersson took the L) and posting a .895 save% and getting hurt last night. Has the clock struck midnight to turn his crease into a pumpkin? That could be a possibly crushing development for the Flyers to sink out of the playoff race in the second half of the season if Vladar’s injury is serious and/or his performance can’t rebound.

Key to the game: Kick an opponent while they’re down

Tonight might be the most vulnerable the Flyers have been all season. They’re playing a second night in a row and have lost four straight. Their goaltending is in flux, their offense hasn’t been much better. The Penguins have had significant difficulties themselves in generating goals lately (just two over the last three games), Philadelphia is not much better scoring one or two goals in each of the last four games. Nothing is clicking and things are starting to go off the rails. The Penguins can’t single-handedly send them on an unrecoverable slide, but they do have a great opportunity to add even more to Philadelphia’s current spiral.

On the other side, the proverbial wounded opponent can also be the most dangerous. The Flyers will surely give whatever effort and energy they have to be desperate to break out of this lull against a rival on the road, the Penguins can’t expect an easy night but it’s difficult to scheme up a more advantageous position to be in coming into this game.

Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin

Anthony Mantha – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau

Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari

Brett Kulak / Kris Letang

Parker Wotherspoon / Jack St. Ivany

Ryan Shea / Connor Clifton

Goalies: Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs

Potential Scratches: Ryan Graves, Kevin Hayes

IR: Erik Karlsson, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones, Rutger McGroarty

There were no changes in the lines yesterday at practice for the Penguins, who look like they’re going to count on Rust’s return to eventually help boost the offensive output to where it needs to be.

Biggest game of the season…so far?

Tonight won’t be the absolute most important game of the season, but there’s a good case to be made that it’s the biggest game the Penguins have played so far (and not just in that lame way because it’s the next game of the season).

The model on hockeystats.com gives this game up to a 14 point swing for Pittsburgh on playoff outlook, depending on if it’s a regulation win or loss. The stakes are almost as high and even more dire for Philadelphia, whose chances take a very big hit if they were to fall in regulation.

There will be plenty more big games to come deeper into the season, a game where you’re playing a division rival that is tied in the standings is absolutely massive. We saw something similar last week with a Pittsburgh/New Jersey matchup where if the Devils won in regulation they would have drawn within one point of the Pens. Pittsburgh won that game, and as a result won some temporary breathing room over NJD (who remains two points behind Pittsburgh today, with the Pens also having two games in hand). This matchup is just an meaningful for both teams if it is decided in regulation.

It’s a Skinner night for the Penguins if their typical goalie rotation holds, the new goalie has been settling in nicely to the team in recent games. From the Pens:

Stuart Skinner has been red hot since the Christmas Break, winning three of his four starts (3-1-0). During this stretch, he has only allowed one goal in each of the four games, and ranks near the top of the league in multiple statistical categories among goaltenders:

Goaltender Leaders Since Dec. 25 (Min. 2 Games Played)

Category Rank
Save Percentage (.955) T1st
Goals Against (1.01) 1st
Goals Allowed (4) T2nd