Since you read Broad Street Hockey Dot Com four times a day, you are likely aware that it’s the 50th anniversary season for the Philadelphia Flyers. And tonight when the team hosts the Arizona Coyotes at the Wells Fargo Center, it’ll be first of several “Heritage Nights” they host.
They’ll welcome 15 members of the team Hall of Fame into the building for a pregame ceremony. We don’t know exactly how that will look, but we’re expecting it to be pretty cool. As far as we can tell, this is one of the few times in history that this many members of the Flyers Hall of Fame are in one place. It should be quite the scene.
Puck drop will be around 7:20 p.m. after the ceremony.
On the ice, Dale Weise returns from suspension. The Flyers have returned Taylor Leier to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, and it looks like Boyd Gordon will take a seat with Weise checking back into the lineup.
There’s a bit of a shakeup on the top-6 as well, with Travis Konecny joining Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux on the top line. (fire emoji) Sean Couturier will center Matt Read and Wayne Simmonds on the second line, and on the third line, Nick Cousins is back to the center position between Brayden Schenn and Weise.
Steve Mason will start in goal, as he’s pretty clearly taken the lead in the goalie battle against Michal Neuvirth. The defensive pairings are the same as we saw on Tuesday against Buffalo.
Since we last met the Coyotes on the first weekend of the season, they’ve …. uhh, yet to win a game. Much like the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday, they wrap up a long East Coast road trip this evening in Philadelphia hoping just to scrounge up one victory after losses to Ottawa, Montreal and all three New York-area teams.
The Flyers probably should have won that game out in Arizona on October 15, too. It was what’s turned into a typical game for them early this season: a slow start with a big comeback. But overall in that one, they pushed the Coyotes around and controlled the puck for long stretches, including for much of the overtime period before giving up a frustrating one on a delayed penalty.
They’ll go with goalie Louis Domingue in net tonight. In three starts and one relief appearance this season, Domingue has allowed 13 goals. In 154 minutes of ice time. That said, he will likely shut the Flyers out tonight.
Tonight’s game is on CSN Philly and 97.5 The Fanatic locally. In Arizona, it’s on FS Arizona. Elsewhere you’ll need an NHL Center Ice or NHL.tv subscription to watch.
Here’s a full look at lineups:
Philadelphia lineup
Forwards
- Travis Konecny – Claude Giroux – Jake Voracek
- Matt Read – Sean Couturier – Wayne Simmonds
- Brayden Schenn – Nick Cousins – Dale Weise
- Chris VandeVelde – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Roman Lyubimov
Defense
- Andrew MacDonald – Shayne Gostisbehere
- Ivan Provorov – Brandon Manning
- Radko Gudas – Mark Streit
Goalies
- Steve Mason
- Michal Neuvirth
Scratches: Boyd Gordon, Nick Schultz
Injured: Michael Del Zotto, Scott Laughton, Michael Raffl
Suspended: nobody! omg!
Arizona lineup
Forwards
- Max Domi – Martin Hanzal – Radim Vrbata
- Jamie McGinn – Jordan Martinook – Anthony Duclair (lol Rangers)
- Tobias Funke Rieder – Brad Richardson – Shane Doan
- Laurent Dauphin – Christian Dvorak – Former Flyer Ryan White
Defense
- Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Connor Murphy
- Alex Goligoski – Michael Stone
- Jakob Chychrun – Former Flyer Luke Schenn
Goalies
- Louis Domingue
- Justin Peters
