Have you ever been to Buffalo in January? I haven’t, but I’m imagining that it’s the grayest place on the planet, and also somewhere that the Flyers will play a hockey game tonight. They are at the Marine Midland Arena HSBC Arena First Niagara Center KeyBank Center for a contest against the Sabres.
The Sabres are … not in last place? That’s an upgrade for them I guess. At 15-15-9, Buffalo sits in a points tie with the Detroit Red Wings for last in the Atlantic Division, and they are one point ahead of the Islanders for the bottom spot in the conference.
Dan Bylsma’s team is pretty terrible still, though. They have just one scorer with more than 10 goals — Kyle Okposo, named an All-Star today, with 12 in 38 games — and are scoring just 2.26 goals per game, which is fourth-worst in the NHL.
Buffalo has points in each of their last three games, but nevertheless, Bylsma is tinkering with the lineup in advance of this evening’s game. (Sound familiar?) Anders Nilsson will get the start in goal for the Sabres as regular starter Robin Lehner has the flu.
Steve Mason will be in goal for the Flyers. Full lineup below. Tonight’s game is on CSN Philly and CSNPhilly.com, as well as 97.5 The Fanatic. MSG has coverage in Upstate New York.
Flyers lineup
Forwards
- Michael Raffl – Claude Giroux – Matt Read
- Travis Konecny – Sean Couturier – Jake Voracek
- Dale Weise – Brayden Schenn – Wayne Simmonds
- Chris VandeVelde – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Roman Lyubimov
Defense
- Ivan Provorov – Andrew MacDonald
- Michael Del Zotto – Radko Gudas
- Brandon Manning – Shayne Gostisbehere
Goalies
- Steve Mason
- Michal Neuvirth
Buffalo lineup
Forwards
- Marcus Foligno – Jack Eichel – Brian Gionta
- William Carrier – Ryan O’Reilly – Kyle Okposo
- Evander Kane – Sam Reinhart – Justin Bailey
- Nic Deslauriers – Zemgus Girgensons – Matt Moulson
Defense
- Jake McCabe – Rasmus Ristolainen
- Zach Bogosian – Cody Franson
- Justin Falk – Taylor Fedun
Goalies
- Anders Nilsson
- Robin Lehner
