The Flyers are in Minnesota tonight to take on Bruce Boudreau’s Wild club, which appears to be locked into the second spot in the Central Division for the upcoming playoffs. The Flyers aren’t going to those.
Minnesota has been a force all year, but they’re definitely going through a late season swoon that’s seen Chicago take over the top spot in the Central. Their fans seem OK with it. Either way, it sounds nice. Competing for things. Playoffs. Lots of teams get to do that. Most of them, actually. Not us. We don’t get nice things. I think the Flyers have broken me of my spirit to write previews of hockey games, and of my will to live.
Anyway, here’s a paragraph or two about the shit Dave Hakstol’s doing in advance of yet another alleged display of athletics that we’ll actively choose to torture ourselves with this evening. Travis Konecny is playing on the fourth line with Chris VandeVelde and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, because what better way to help a 19-year-old skill player grow than to put him with the two players who, objectively speaking, have the least amount of talent.
Elsewhere, Michael Del Zotto comes out and Brandon Manning comes in. Here’s a tweet I saw:
I do find it funny that I wrote on Tuesday, “They have one good pair (3/15) and two awful ones (9/47, 55/53)” and Hak kills the good one.
— Charlie O’Connor (@BSH_Charlie) March 23, 2017
The rest of the forward lines are being shaken up too, with the lone exception of Sean Couturier, Brayden Schenn and Dale Weise. They’ll stick together. Jordan Weal will play with Wayne Simmonds and Valtteri Filppula, while Claude Giroux will play with Matt Read and Jake Voracek.
Steve Mason will likely start in goal. I will likely fall asleep by the second period. It’s an 8 p.m. start. It’s on CSN Philly and 97.5 The Fanatic. Alternatively, there’s a Shark Tank marathon on CNBC or a Tiny House, Big Living marathon on HGTV. Your call.
