After a thrilling victory over the league-leading Boston Bruins on Saturday, the Philadelphia Flyers are right back in action on Sunday evening against the also dangerous Florida Panthers.
The Flyers are doing a great job of keeping their playoff aspirations alive and still maintain the third position in the Metropolitan Division. Philadelphia has a two point advantage over the Washington Capitals, who won against Winnipeg on Sunday afternoon.
“The thing I take out of the game, it’s two games in a row now that our third period has been our strongest period,” said head coach John Tortorella after Saturday’s win. “I thought we took over the game in Carolina. I know we give up a couple goals in this [third] period, but territorial and the chances, I thought it was a really good third period by the whole group.”
Tortorella won’t be changing his group from that game much at all tonight as the lone lineup switch comes in goal. Felix Sandström will earn his third start of the season, with his last outing coming on March 16th in a 6-5 loss at Boston.
As for tonight’s opponent, Philadelphia just recently took on the Panthers on March 7th, just over two weeks ago. The Flyers won that contest 2-1, much as they did in their first meeting against the Panthers on February 6th. This would be the Flyers’ fifth consecutive victory over Florida and their first season sweep of the Panthers since the 2016-17 campaign.
The Panthers enter tonight’s game on a bit of a skid, losing their last four (0-3-1) and they have slipped out of first place in the Atlantic Division. They sit two points behind Boston for the top spot in the division and are virtually locked into playoff position at this point in the season.
Florida will still be without superstar center Aleksander Barkov for this contest, which will help the Flyers breathe a sigh of relief. The Panthers’ captain started missing practice last week with an undisclosed issue and has sat out the last two games. Florida is already missing top defenseman Aaron Ekblad, so losing Barkov is an even more tremendous blow to the Panthers.
PHI Record: 36-26-9, 81 pts, 3rd in Metropolitan
FLA Record: 45-20-5, 95 pts, 2nd in Atlantic
When: 6:00pm ET
Where: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA
Broadcast Info: NBC Sports Philadelphia+, 93.3 WMMR
Last Game PHI: 3/23/24, 3-2 W vs. Boston
Last Game FLA: 3/23/24, 4-3 SOL at NY Rangers
PHI Goalie: Felix Sandström (1-1-0, .829 SV%, 4.08 GAA, 0 SO)
FLA Goalie: Anthony Stolarz (13-5-2, .925 SV%, 2.02 GAA, 1 SO)
PHI Projected Lineup
#74 Owen Tippett – #48 Morgan Frost – #11 Travis Konecny
#86 Joel Farabee – #21 Scott Laughton – #10 Bobby Brink
#71 Tyson Foerster – #25 Ryan Poehling – #19 Garnet Hathaway
#27 Noah Cates – #14 Sean Couturier – #62 Olle Lycksell
#8 Cam York – #6 Travis Sanheim
#50 Adam Ginning – #23 Ronnie Attard
#5 Egor Zamula – #77 Erik Johnson
#32 Felix Sandström
#33 Samuel Ersson
Scratches: #15 Denis Gurianov, #18 Marc Staal, #44 Nicolas Deslauriers, #89 Cam Atkinson
Injuries: #9 Jamie Drysdale, #24 Nick Seeler, #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
FLA Projected Lineup
#27 Eetu Luostarinen – #15 Anton Lundell – #13 Sam Reinhart
#23 Carter Verhaeghe – #9 Sam Bennett – #19 Matthew Tkachuk
#17 Evan Rodrigues – #82 Kevin Stenlund – #10 Vladimir Tarasenko
#21 Nick Cousins – #18 Steven Lorentz – #94 Ryan Lomberg
#42 Gustav Forsling – #91 Oliver Ekman-Larsson
#77 Niko Mikkola – #62 Brandon Montour
#42 Josh Mahura – #7 Dmitry Kulikov
#41 Anthony Stolarz
#72 Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratches: #2 Tobias Björnfot, #8 Kyle Okposo, #26 Uvis Balinskis
Injuries: #5 Aaron Ekblad, #12 Jonah Gadjovich, #16 Aleksander Barkov
News and Notes
– The Flyers are 59-37-7-6 all-time against the Panthers and are 27-17-6-4 at home against them.
– The Flyers are 25-15-3-4 against the Panthers at Wells Fargo Center since it opened in 1996.
– Owen Tippett and Morgan Frost are both riding six-game point streaks.
– Travis Konecny has reached the 30-goal mark for a second consecutive season. He is the Flyers’ first back-to-back 30+ goal scorer since Sean Couturier (2018-2019).
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