The Flyers are north of the border tonight for their first game against an Atlantic Division team on the new season, visiting the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre.
Coming off of Saturday night’s tumultuous win against the Carolina Hurricanes, Steve Mason will again get the nod in net. Yeah, remember when you freaked out because he didn’t start the season opener? He’s coming off a performance in which he arguably won the game for the Flyers vs. Carolina, and with another strong one tonight he’ll clearly take the lead as at least the team’s 1A goalie.
The Flyers certainly didn’t dominate the game in terms of puck control the other night, and that had another miserable first period in which they fell behind — something that’s been a staple in all five games for this team so far. But after they again shook off the early cobwebs, things really shifted. The offense feels dangerous, with Jakub Voracek and Matt Read leading the charge after dismal scoring seasons a year ago.
On defense, Ivan Provorov bounced back with a great game on Saturday, Brandon Manning has played his way into a roster conversation that gets quite interesting when Radko Gudas returns tomorrow, and Shayne Gostisbehere is coming off of a game that looked like what we came to expect from him last season.
Montreal, however, presents an interesting challenge tonight. The Habs have been the best team in the East so far this season, sitting at 4-0-1 so far in the early going. They have scored at least four goals in all of their wins so far, and they still scored three in the shootout loss they suffered on October 15. So assuming their luck doesn’t run out all at once tonight, it’s going to be a challenge on the road. Carey Price is net for the Habs and … I mean, it’s Carey Price.
Locally, the game can be seen on CSN Philly and heard in 97.5 The Fanatic. Elsewhere in the United States, you’ll need an NHL.tv or NHL Center Ice subscription. In Canada, the game can be seen on RDS in French or Sportsnet East in English. NHL GameCentre Live and Sportsnet Now have the live streams for Canadians.
Philadelphia lineup
Forwards
- Brayden Schenn – Claude Giroux – Wayne Simmonds
- Travis Konecny – Sean Couturier – Jakub Voracek
- Nick Cousins – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Meat Read
- Chris VandeVelde – Boyd Gordon – Roman Lyubimov
Defense
- Andrew MacDonald – Shayne Gostisbehere
- Ivan Provorov – Brandon Manning
- Nick Schultz – Mark Streit
Goalies
- Steve Mason
- Michal Neuvirth
Scratches: n/a
Injured: Michael Del Zotto, Scott Laughton, Michael Raffl
Suspended: Radko Gudas, Dale Weise
Montreal lineup
Forwards
- Max Pacioretty – Alex Galchenyuk – Brendan Gallagher
- Arturri Lehkonen – Tomas Plekanec – Alex Radulov
- Andrew Shaw – David Desharnais – Paul Byron
- Phillip Danault – Torrey Mitchell – Brian Flynn
Defense
- Shea Weber – Nathan Beaulieu
- Andrei Markov – Jeff Petry
- Alexei Emelin – Greg Pateryn
Goalies
- Carey Price
- Al Montoya
