It’s going to be an emotional night at the Wells Fargo Center this evening when the Flyers raise a banner honoring Ed Snider to the rafters, in addition to all of the other 50th anniversary celebrations that the team has in store. There’s also a Shake Shack opening on the main concourse, which brings some … different emotions.
But after all of that, there’s a hockey game. The Flyers are back from their season-opening Western Conference road trip, and they’re facing a desperate Anaheim Ducks team that has yet to win a game so far this season.
Brayden Schenn returns to the lineup tonight for Philadelphia, while Michael Raffl will check out of the lineup due to injury.
The Ducks come in essentially as victims of themselves. They took seven penalties in their loss on Tuesday to the Devils, and they’re 0-3-1 in the early going. All four games have been on the road, and this is the final game of that trip for Anaheim. It’s a rough start for a club that was one of the best in the West last year, led of course by Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler up the middle and Corey Perry as their top line winger. Their defense remains strong with Cam Fowler and Sami Vatanen leading the way back there, but the big question around the Ducks comes to coaching.
They fired Bruce Boudreau after yet another disappointing playoff run, and … they hired Randy Carlyle. (No word on if his toaster came with him.) To call that a downgrade behind the bench is quite possibly hockey’s understatement of the year, and just how much of an impact that has on what’s still a pretty talented club remains to be seen.
Season-long narratives around the Anaheim Ducks don’t really impact us much tonight, however. The Flyers are looking to get back on track after two losses in a row to close the road trip, and Anaheim’s issues are not really all that much of a concern. Instead, the Flyers need to get off to a better start — something they’ve yet to do in three games this season — and hope that on defense, Mark Streit and Ivan Provorov are able to have a bounce back game. It would be nice to see more of the second line tonight, and the strong power play looks that we got the other night would do Philadelphia well this evening also.
Steve Mason will start in net across from the Ducks’ John Gibson. Roman Lyubimov returns to the press box after one game in the lineup and Nick Cousins is back on the fourth line. Go Flyers. Don’t throw your fucking bracelets.
Philadelphia lineup
Forwards
- Brayden Schenn – Claude Giroux – Wayne Simmonds
- Travis Konecny – Sean Couturier – Jakub Voracek
- Matt Read – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Dale Weise
- Chris VandeVelde – Boyd Gordon – Nick Cousins
Defense
- Andrew MacDonald – Shayne Gostisbehere
- Ivan Provorov – Mark Streit
- Nick Schultz – Brandon Manning
Goalies
- Michal Neuvirth
- Steve Mason
Scratches: Roman Lyubimov
Injured: Michael Del Zotto, Scott Laughton, Michael Raffl
Suspended: Radko Gudas
Anaheim lineup
Forwards
- Nick Ritchie – Ryan Getzlaf – Corey Perry
- Andrew Cogliano – Ryan Kesler – Jakob Silfverberg
- Ryan Garbutt – Antoine Vermette – Nick Sorensen
- Emerson Etem – Chris Wagner – Jared Boll
Defense
- Cam Fowler – Josh Manson
- Jacob Larsson – Sami Vatanen
- [insert marijuana joke here] – Kevin Bieksa
Goalies
- John Gibson
- Jonathan Bernier
