The Philadelphia Flyers have not had a streak of seven straight wins since the 2001-02 season, when they won eight straight in the month of January on their way to a division title. Two of those wins came against the Atlanta Thrashers, a team that does not even exist anymore.
A win tonight against the Edmonton Oilers will bring them closing to matching that streak. Currently a six-gamer after Tuesday’s overtime win against Florida, the Flyers have jumped back into a playoff spot and sit just two points out of first place in the Metropolitan Division (if you ignore the number of games played by each team).
It’s been an impressive stretch of hockey for the Flyers, who are finally seeing things go their way after a tough start to the year— where they certainly weren’t getting the bounces. There are concerns, however: Philadelphia was outshot Tuesday 44-25, and they’ve needed Steve Mason to be phenomenal in goal to ride out parts of this win streak.
Luckily, the goalie has been up to the task. They will probably need him to stand tall again in net tonight, as the young Oilers have been the fourth-best scoring team in hockey so far this season. (We should note that they are behind three Metropolitan Division teams in this category, including the Flyers.)
The Flyers have one lineup move tonight: now over an illness that kept him out for three games, Radko Gudas checks back in on defense. Michael Del Zotto will be the healthy scratch for Philadelphia.
Connor McDavid leads Edmonton and the NHL in scoring with 11 goals and 25 assists on the year thus far. Have you heard that he’s good? He’s pretty good.
The Flyers will face the Oilers’ backup goaltender tonight as Jonas Gustavsson gets the start. He’s only played in five games so far on the year and he’s allowed seven goals on 91 shots faced, a .923 save percentage.
The game tonight can be seen on CSN Philly and heard on 93.3 WMMR in the Delaware Valley. In Alberta, the game is on Sportsnet Oilers. CSN Philly also has a live stream, and NHL.tv is streaming as well.
Flyers lineup
Forwards
- Michael Raffl – Claude Giroux – Jakub Voracek
- Travis Konecny – Brayden Schenn – Wayne Simmonds
- Taylor Leier – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Dale Weise
- Chris VandeVelde – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Roman Lyubimov
Defense
- Ivan Provorov – Andrew MacDonald
- Brandon Manning – Shayne Gostisbehere
- Radko Gudas – Mark Streit
Goalies
- Steve Mason
- Anthony Stolarz
Scratches: Nick Schultz, Boyd Gordon, Michael Del Zotto
Injured: Michal Neuvirth, Sean Couturier, Meat Read
Edmonton lineup
Forwards
tbd
Defense
tbd
Goalies
- Jonas Gustavsson
- Cam Talbot
