Fresh off the heels of defeating the Washington Capitals 5-3 on Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Center, the Philadelphia Flyers look to sweep the home-and-home series against the Capitals tonight at Capital One Arena.
The Flyers are on a bit of a roll right now, winning 6 of their last 7 games and enter tonight on a 4-game road winning streak that dates back to December 29th against San Jose.
Philadelphia’s win on Wednesday was paced by Travis Konecny’s hat trick, the second of his career. The Flyers also received goals from Scott Laughton and Owen Tippett while Carter Hart stopped 26 Washington shots to secure his 12th win of the season. Konecny now has 24 goals and 46 points in just 36 games played this season and he is currently on pace to become the first Flyer to reach 40+ goals in a season since Jeff Carter in 2008-09 (46).
The same kind of recent success cannot exactly be said for the Capitals, who have been seesawing between wins and losses during the last two weeks. Since the calendar turned to 2023, Washington has only won two of five games – both against Columbus – and since embarking on two 5-game winning streaks separated by one loss over 11 games in December, they’ve lost 3 of their last 6.
Tonight also marks the final regular season meeting between these two rivals, with Washington owning a 2-1-0 advantage so far. The Flyers look to even the season series and also win 5 consecutive road games for the first time, if you don’t include the 2020 Playoffs bubble as true road games, since 2018-19. 12 of the 20 players in that lineup from February 17th, 2019 are no longer with the Flyers. Time flies.
PHI Record: 17-18-7, 41 pts, 7th in Metropolitain
WSH Record: 23-15-6, 52 pts, 4th in Metropolitain
Last Game PHI: 1/11/23, 5-3 W vs. Washington
Last Game WSH: 1/11/23, 5-3 L at Philadelphia
When: 7:00pm ET
Where: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
PHI Goalie: Carter Hart (12-12-6, .907 SV%, 2.97 GAA, 0 SO)
WSH Goalie: Darcy Kuemper (12-10-4, .919 SV%, 2.54 GAA, 4 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#86 Joel Farabee – #49 Noah Cates – #11 Travis Konecny
#25 James van Riemsdyk – #48 Morgan Frost – #74 Owen Tippett
#13 Kevin Hayes – #21 Scott Laughton – #57 Wade Allison
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #38 Patrick Brown – #17 Zack MacEwen
#9 Ivan Provorov – #45 Cam York
#6 Travis Sanheim – #77 Tony DeAngelo
#24 Nick Seeler – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
#79 Carter Hart
#33 Samuel Ersson
WSH Projected Lineup
#8 Alex Ovechkin – #92 Evgeny Kuznetsov – #73 Conor Sheary
#15 Sonny Milano – #19 Nicklas Bäckström – #43 Tom Wilson
#39 Anthony Mantha – #26 Nic Dowd – #77 T.J. Oshie
#90 Marcus Johansson – #20 Lars Eller – #21 Garnet Hathaway
#56 Erik Gustafsson – #57 Trevor van Riemsdyk
#9 Dmitry Orlov – #3 Nick Jensen
#52 Matt Irwin – #42 Martin Fehervary
#35 Darcy Kuemper
#79 Charlie Lindgren
PHI Injuries: Cam Atkinson (neck), Sean Couturier (back), Ryan Ellis (hip), Tanner Laczynski (lower-body)
Scratches: Justin Braun, Kieffer Bellows
WSH Injuries: Connor Brown (ACL), Carl Hagelin (hip), Beck Malenstyn (upper-body), John Carlson (face)
Scratched: Dylan Strome, Nicolas Aubé-Kubel, Alexander Alexeyev
News and Notes
– The Flyers are looking for their first win in Washington since November 6th, 2021, a span of 3 road games.
– Travis Konecny is scorching-hot right now. The 25-year-old is currently riding a career-high 10 game point streak in which he’s posted 12 goals and 8 assists for 20 points in that stretch. He also currently owns the NHL’s longest active point streak and has continued to find ways to contribute and simply dominate in games.
– Carter Hart continues to climb up the Flyers’ all-time goaltending ranks. He will make his 177th appearance as a Flyer tonight, which puts him just 3 games away from passing Pete Peeters for 5th. If Hart earns the win tonight, it would be his 75th victory and would push him to also just 3 wins away from passing Doug Favell for 9th.
– Among nicely-numbered games played milestones, here’s where a few different Flyers will stack up after tonight: Kevin Hayes – 595, Scott Laughton – 480, Travis Konecny – 465, Wade Allison – 40.
Broadcast Info: TV – NBC Sports Philadelphia, Radio – 97.5 The Fanatic
