Philadelphia Flyers vs Carolina Hurricanes: How to watch, Lineups, Keys to game

The Philadelphia Flyers are coming off a rough 3 game road trip for a short pit stop home to face the Carolina Hurricanes. 

The Flyers record has now dropped down to 0-4-2 and after a promising effort in Ottawa the Flyers did not show up to play on Saturday in Boston. After getting outshot 32-15 in Boston, the Flyers now have a -95 shot differential on the year. This is now the fourth worst in NHL history. If the Flyers want to get things on track they are going to have to get that turned around and they have the chance to do so tonight against Carolina. Puck drop tonight is at 7 PM.

How to Watch

• Time: 7 PM
• Location: Xfinity Mobile Arena Philadelphia, PA
• TV: NBC Sports Philadelphia

• Radio: Rock 104.1

• Streaming: ESPN +

Projected Flyers Lines vs Hurricanes

Forwards

46 Trevor Zegras - 22 Christian Dvorak - 71 Tyson Foerster

74 Owen Tippett - 14 Sean Couturier - 39 Matvei Michkov

86 Denver Barkey - 27 Noah Cates - 94 Porter Martone

58 Michael Bunting - 52 Noel Acciari - 10 Garrett Wilson

Defense

6 Travis Sanheim - 9 Jamie Drysdale

24 Nick Seeler - 5 David Jiricek

3 Helge Grans - 44 Simon Benoit

Goalies

52 Joseph Woll

80 Dan Vladar

Injuries & Roster Updates

Travis Konecny: Still day to day with a lower-body injury.

Cam York: Still day to day with an upper-body injury

Joseph Woll: Getting the start today between the pipes.

Projected Opponents Lines: Carolina Hurricanes

Forwards

28 William Carrier - 20 Sebastian Aho - 37 Andrei Svechnikov

71 Taylor Hall - 22 Logan Stankoven - 53 Jackson Blake

27 Nikolaj Ehlers - 11 Jordan Staal - 48 Jordan Martinook

82 Jesperi Kotkaniemi - 77 Mark Jankowski - 50 Eric Robinson

Defense

74 Jacob Slavin - 5 Jalen Chatfield

19 K’Andre Miller - 26 Sean Walker

4 Shayne Gostisbehere - 6 Mike Reilly

Goalies

52 Pyotr Kochetkov 

32 Brandon Bussi

Keys to the Game

• Getting the puck out of their zone: The Flyers need to be able to clear the puck out of their zone, it might be the biggest reason for the lack of offensive pressure. Throughout the season so far the Flyers have spent 46% of the time in their own defensive zone. Especially when playing a team that is as dangerous as the Hurricanes are, the Flyers need to be able to make their breakout passes when exiting the zone. The reason for so many of the “dump and chase” plays is that they spend so much time in their zone by the time the guys are at the end of the shift they are so gassed they need to dump and then the next line has to play defense in their own zone.

• Staying out of the penalty box: The Carolina Hurricanes have the 7th best power play in the league converting at a 30% rate. And the Flyers penalty kill is in the bottom half of the league at a 77% rate. The Flyers need to be more disciplined and have to stay out of the box to give them the chance to generate offense. The penalties that they take kill any type of momentum that they are able to generate and with a dangerous power play like Carolina’s they need to stay out of the box.

• Keep the young guys going: In the Flyers last game against Boston Porter Martone recorded the only goal for the Flyers on the power play funny enough. That was his first goal of the year, and Matvei Michkov is tied for the team lead in goals. The young guys are the only source of offensive production that the Flyers are getting and they need to stick with that. Especially with Travis Konecny dealing with injuries the youth of this team needs to step up and be a driving force.

By The Numbers

• In the last 3 matchups against the Hurricanes the Flyers penalty kill is 12-17. For the Flyers to be successful tonight they need to be sharp on the penalty kill and let Joseph Woll’s night be as easy as can be.
• Joseph Woll is 2-2-2 in 6 games with a goals against average of 2.82 and a save percentage of .921 against the Hurricanes in his career.
• In 36 career regular season games against the Flyers, Sebastian Aho has recorded 17 goals, 21 assists for 38 points.

Quotable

“You gotta just stick together. There’s no other answer.” - Rick Tocchet on the team's recent efforts in games.

X-Factors

• Porter Martone: Martone has been the Flyers best all around players as of late. In the last game against Boston he recorded his first goal of the year and it was on the power play with a wicked shot. Martone has been doing a lot though in the hitting department and has been trying to give his team some energy in every game so far. Martone is the spark that the Flyers have been desperately looking for and if he is going to piggy back off his last game in Boston, the Flyers will have such a better chance to win tonight.

• Sebastian Aho: Aho has been a Flyer killer in his career putting up over a point per game against Philadelphia. In the last game that they played Aho put up 2 goals with an assist having a part of every goal Carolina scored. Aho is the leader offensively for the Hurricanes and leads the team in goals and in points. The Flyers have to shut down Aho to the best of their abilities to give themselves a shot tonight to win.

Alex Berardis is a Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN Follow him on social media @PhillyLix