Flyers-Blues: Game 41 Preview

Team Leaders

Philadelphia Flyers	GP	G	A	P	St. Louis Blues	GP	G	A	P
Claude Giroux	40	13	35	48	Brayden Schenn	43	17	25	42
Jake Voracek	40	8	40	48	Vladimir Tarasenko	43	17	22	39
Sean Couturier	40	19	19	38	Jaden Schwartz	30	14	21	35
Shayne Gostisbehere	37	8	22	30	Alex Pietrangelo	39	7	21	28
Wayne Simmonds	40	13	11	24	Paul Stastny	43	8	19	27

 

Player to Watch
14 Sean Couturier	10 Brayden Schenn
Last 5 Games: 3 G, 4 A, 7 P, +1	Last 5 Games: 0 G, 2 A, 2 P, E

 

Sean Couturier continues to lead the way for the Flyers in goals, and has three in the last four games to keep his career year going strong. He enters Saturday's game, the halfway point of the season just a goal shy of his first 20-goal season and one point shy of matching his career-high for points in a season.

 

Brayden Schenn is also on track for a career year. The Flyers traded Schenn on draft night to St. Louis for an additional first-round pick in 2017 and a conditional first-round pick in 2018, and while that likely bodes well for their future and Morgan Frost, the selection made with the pick acquired, is lighting up juniors, Schenn is having a tremendous year. He's already on pace for career-highs in goals and points. Interestingly enough, Schenn enters this game in a bit of a scoring slump. He scored six goals in for games from Dec. 5-10, and since then has just one goal and four assists in 12 games. But playing against his former team will probably be a motivator. 

 

Goalie Matchup
37 Brian Elliott	34 Jake Allen
15-10-7, 2.73 GAA, .910 SV%	18-12-2, 2.57 GAA, .913 SV%

Make it 16 straight starts for Brian Elliott. The Flyers goaltender has been a workhorse, and while he's had many good games during his stretch of consecutive starts, Elliott allowed four goals in the win over the Islanders on Thursday after giving up five to the Penguins on Tuesday. A break is certainly in order for Elliott, and he'll probably finally get one on Sunday, so this is expected to be his final start before the bye week. And it comes against one of his former teams. 

Jake Allen has gotten the bulk of the work for the Blues, but has yet to make a start in 2018. This will be his first start in over a week. And his recent performances haven't been great. Allen has just one win since Dec. 10, losing four straight starts at one point. He has allowed three goals or more in four of his last six starts.  

Flyers Projected Lineup

Scratches: Taylor Leier, Dale Weise, Travis Sanheim

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
28 Claude Giroux	14 Sean Couturier	11 Travis Konecny
12 Michael Raffl	51 Valtteri Filppula	93 Jake Voracek
40 Jordan Weal	19 Nolan Patrick	17 Wayne Simmonds
15 Jori Lehtera	21 Scott Laughton	56 Tyrell Goulbourne
Defense
9 Ivan Provorov	53 Shayne Gostisbehere
8 Robert Hagg	47 Andrew MacDonald
23 Brandon Manning	3 Radko Gudas
Goalie
37 Brian Elliott

Lineup Notes

While the Flyers other three lines remain intact, look for Tyrell Goulbourne to make his NHL debut on the fourth line with Scott Laughton and Jori Lehtera.

Blues Projected Lineup

Injuries: Jaden Schwartz, Robby Fabbri, Zachary Sanford

Scratches: Oskar Sundqvist, Chris Thorburn, Vince Dunn

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
71 Vladimir Sobotka	26 Paul Stastny	32 Tage Thompson
9 Scottie Upshall	10 Brayden Schenn	91 Vladimir Tarasenko
21 Patrik Berglund	28 Kyle Brodziak	20 Alex Steen
23 Dmitrij Jaskin	49 Ivan Barbashev	56 Magnus Paajarvi
Defense
19 Jay Bouwmeester	27 Alex Pietrangelo
6 Joel Edmundson	55 Colton Parayko
4 Carl Gunnarsson	41 Robert Bortuzzo
Goalie
34 Jake Allen

Game Notes

• Power Play: Flyers (13th, T-17th at home), Blues (28th, 27th on road)
• Penalty Kill: Flyers (29th, 30th at home), Blues (10th, 10th on road) 
• Recent History vs. Blues
  • Nov. 2, 2017 – Flyers 2, Blues 0 (at STL)
• Flyers Leaders vs. Blues
  • Shayne Gostisbehere – 3 GP, 0 G, 3 A, 3 P
  • Travis Konecny – 3 GP, 0 G, 2 A, 2 P
  • Wayne Simmonds – 21 GP, 6 G, 7 A, 13 P
  • Brian Elliott – 5 GP, 4-1-0, 2.16 GAA

Where to Watch
TV: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Radio: 97.5 The Fanatic