After a solid 4-1 win at Montréal on Tuesday, the Philadelphia Flyers (17-9-6) take on the Buffalo Sabres (14-14-4) in the second contest of their four-game road trip at KeyBank Center. Puck drop is slated for 7:30pm ET.
Philadelphia enters tonight on a five-game point streak, going 2-0-3 over that stretch. In Tuesday’s victory, Trevor Zegras extended his goal streak to 4 goals and point streak to 5 games, Carl Grundström picked up his 3rd goal and 4th point since being recalled, and Dan Vladař continued his impressive season with 21 saves.
The Flyers are in good shape to make it 6 consecutive games with a point against a Buffalo club they whooped 5-2 on December 3rd at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The Flyers have won three of their last four matchups against the Sabres dating back to last season as well.
On the other side of the ice, the Sabres currently sit dead last in the Eastern Conference with 32 points, and the team fired Kevyn Adams on Monday and named Jarmo Kekäläinen as their new general manager.
The Flyers are going to want to shoot early and often tonight if they want to keep things rolling. The Sabres give up 3.41 goals per game and 29.8 shots per game, but former Flyer Alex Lyon is projected to start for Buffalo and has a .905 SV% and 2.99 GAA in 17 appearances this season. He has stolen a few games for the Sabres this season and the Flyers need to attack him quickly.
A strong start would be very important as well since the Flyers give up the first goal of the game way more often than not. Philadelphia has let up the opening goal in 22 of their 32 games this season, but they are 12-6-4 when allowing the first goal. They definitely are the comeback kids in the NHL, but they’ll eventually get bitten if they keep starting slow.
Philadelphia Injury Report:
Buffalo Injury Report:
- Colten Ellis (concussion)
- Jason Zucker (upper/lower-body)
- Justin Danforth (knee)
- Jiří Kulich (blood clot)
Where: KeyBank Center; Buffalo, NY
When: 12/18/2025; 7:30pm ET
TV Broadcast: ESPN+/Hulu
Last Game PHI: 12/16/2025; 4-1 W; at Montréal Canadiens
Last Game BUF: 12/14/2025; 3-1 W; @ Seattle Kraken
Philadelphia Projected Lineup:
#46 Trevor Zegras – #22 Christian Dvorak – #11 Travis Konecny
#91 Carl Grundström – #14 Sean Couturier – #74 Owen Tippett
#39 Matvei Michkov – #27 Noah Cates – #10 Bobby Brink
#44 Nicolas Deslauriers – #18 Rodrigo Ābols – #19 Garnet Hathaway
#8 Cam York – #6 Travis Sanheim
#36 Emil Andrae – #9 Jamie Drysdale
#24 Nick Seeler – #55 Rasmus Ristolainen
#33 Sam Ersson
(#80 Dan Vladař)
Buffalo Projected Lineup:
#19 Peyton Krebs – #72 Tage Thompson – #91 Josh Doan
#6 Zach Benson – #71 Ryan McLeod – #22 Jack Quinn
#86 Noah Östlund – #9 Josh Norris – #89 Alex Tuch
#12 Jordan Greenway – #29 Beck Malenstyn – #48 Tyson Kozak
#26 Rasmus Dahlin – #23 Mattias Samuelsson
#4 Bowen Byram – #78 Jacob Bryson
#25 Owen Power – #8 Michael Kesselring
#34 Alex Lyon
(#1 Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen)
