After a sloppy shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes (20-9-2) to close out their six-game homestand on Saturday, the Philadelphia Flyers (16-9-5) will try to exact their revenge in the second leg of a home-and-home series in Raleigh on Sunday. Puck drop is scheduled for 5:00pm ET.
Tonight will be the third of four meetings between the Flyers and Hurricanes this season. Carolina, who currently resides in first place in the Metropolitan Division, is up 2-0 in the season series after Saturday’s contest in Philadelphia, though the Flyers have taken them past regulation on both occasions.
The Flyers will be looking for a more complete effort tonight. After going up 2-0 and outshooting the Hurricanes by a 7-5 margin in the first period last night, Carolina stormed back to tie the game before the teams traded third period goals for another deadlock, and they outshot the Flyers 16-11 the rest of the way through.
“Played a great first period. I really liked our start,” said head coach Rick Tocchet postgame. “Second [period], Carolina is a pressure team and you gotta go at them with pressure, and I think we backed off, we stop skating. We need some wall play. If we made a couple wall plays, we’d have probably had two or three 3-on-1s. You know, Carolina puts a lot of pressure but I think they’re the worst team when it comes to odd-man rushes, so that’s when you really need to dig in. We just didn’t have enough, you know, what’s the word? Like wall grit or whatever, body position. Like, I’m a big body position guy. You can win your body position [for] the puck, you’re gonna spring it. We kept the shots down, which is good, so there’s positives. I’m gonna take the positive but I think we just gotta start to learn when teams put pressure on us that we gotta find the pressure, we can’t back off. That’s what I believe in.”
The Flyers have done a masterful job this season of limiting opponents’ shots on goal, ranking 5th in the league at just 25.7 allowed per game. The Hurricanes, however, are the best at it, letting up just 21.4 per game. Philadelphia will need to be extra aggressive to try and break through Carolina’s defense tonight, especially considering they fire the second-fewest shots on goal per game in the league at 24.9.
Dan Vladař will start in goal tonight after Sam Ersson played last night. Vladař is 11-5-2 with a .906 SV% and 2.52 GAA this season. He has struggled against the Hurricanes during his career, going 0-4-0 with a .875 SV% and 4.79 GAA in 4 appearances against Carolina, with 3 of those losses coming in Raleigh.
Travis Konecny will look to start a new point streak tonight. He was on a 5-game heater from November 29th to December 9th that saw him rack up 3 goals and 5 assists, but he was held off the scoresheet on December 11th against Vegas. He picked up an assist last night and will try to continue his recent success again.
Cam York will make his return to the Flyers lineup after missing 4 games with an upper-body injury. He will replace Ty Murchison, who has largely impressed so far since being recalled from AHL Lehigh Valley but had a so-so game last night, which featured a brutal neutral zone turnover that led to a Hurricanes goal. Rasmus Ristolainen also made the trip and is expected to make his season debut at some point this week.
Injury Report: Philadelphia Flyers
- Tyson Foerster (upper-body)
- Rasmus Ristolainen (triceps)
Injury Report: Carolina Hurricanes
- Jaccob Slavin (lower-body)
- Jesperi Kotkaniemi (lower-body)
Where: Lenovo Center; Raleigh, NC
When: 12/14/2025; 5pm/ET
TV Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Last Game PHI: 12/13/2025; 4-3 SO L; vs. Carolina Hurricanes
Last Game CAR: 12/13/2025; 4-3 SO W; @ Philadelphia Flyers
Projected Lineup: Philadelphia Flyers
#39 Matvei Michkov – #14 Sean Couturier – #74 Owen Tippett
#46 Trevor Zegras – #22 Christian Dvorak – #11 Travis Konecny
#29 Nikita Grebenkin – #27 Noah Cates – #10 Bobby Brink
#91 Carl Grundström – #18 Rodrigo Ābols – #19 Garnet Hathaway
#8 Cam York – #6 Travis Sanheim
#36 Emil Andrae – #9 Jamie Drysdale
#24 Nick Seeler – #47 Noah Juulsen
#80 Dan Vladař
(#33 Sam Ersson)
Projected Lineup: Carolina Hurricanes
#37 Andrei Svechnikov – #20 Sebastian Aho – #24 Seth Jarvis
#27 Nikolaj Ehlers – #22 Logan Stankoven – #53 Jackson Blake
#28 William Carrier – #11 Jordan Staal – #48 Jordan Martinook
#71 Taylor Hall – #77 Mark Jankowski – #50 Eric Robinson
#19 K’Andre Miller – #26 Sean Walker
#4 Shayne Gostisbehere – #5 Jalen Chatfield
#74 Jaccob Slavin – #21 Alexander Nikishin
#32 Brandon Bussi
(#31 Frederik Andersen)
