It’s a rainy, miserable Tuesday … which sounds like a perfect opportunity to watch a game involving the New Jersey Devils! Good thing, because the Flyers play their final game against New Jersey tonight, up the Turnpike in lovely Newark.
The two teams faced off in a boring, dull, why-yes-I-will-pay-11.50-for-another-beer-right-now game on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia, where the Devils capitalized on a borderline penalty call in overtime to win 2-1.
The Flyers will have to do a better job of controlling play tonight against this team. They controlled shot generation, for the most part, in the second and third periods against the Devils on Saturday, but the tempo was still mostly controlled by an opposition that loves to jam you up in the neutral zone and clog the middle of the ice in the defensive zone. It’s frustrating and can be hard to get quality chances on net against this team, and it brings back memories of Devils teams from a decade ago — even if the current style is a little different than we used to know.
Now, can the Flyers do that with Sean Couturier and Michael Del Zotto still out of the lineup? It was ugly without those two on Sunday against the Rangers, and there just isn’t a lot of quality depth in the lineup. The best strategy, or hope, might be that the Flyers can get one or two past Cory Schneider and also keep the Devils off the board on the other end. Scoring first would certainly help the Flyers dictate the the flow of the game a bit more, but … well, we’ll see.
One note: New Jersey will wear retro jerseys tonight (the ones from the 80s with the green in them) so that’s cool.
Philadelphia Flyers at New Jersey Devils
- When: 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT
- Where: Prudential Center, Newark, N.J., USA
- In the Delaware Valley: CSN Philly, 97.5 The Fanatic, SiriusXM 219
- In North Jersey: MSG+, WFAN
- Everywhere else: NHL Center Ice, SiriusXM 219
- Live streaming: NHL.tv (USA + Europe), Rogers GameCentre Live (Canada)/
The Flyers lineup will likely see a few changes, but we don’t know what those changes are exactly with Jordan Weal likely replacing Scott Laughton in the lineup. Brandon Manning and Sam Gagner join him as scratches, according to the beat writers in Newark.
Michal Neuvirth gets the start in net, and Cory Schneider will go in net for New Jersey. Here are the full lineups as we expect them:
Flyers lineup
- Voracek – Giroux – Simmonds
- Raffl – Cousins – Schenn
- Umberger – Weal – Read
- VandeVelde – Bellemare – White
- Gostisbehere – MacDonald
- Schultz – Streit
- Medvedev – Gudas
New Jersey lineup
- Blandisi – Henrique – Stempniak
- Kalinin – Zajac – Palmieri
- Boucher – Josefson – Kennedy
- Farnham – Gionta – Tootoo
- Greene – Larsson
- Moore – Schlemko
- Helgeson – Severson
