(Photo: Zack Hill/Philadelphia Flyers)
By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor
The Flyers are back on home ice for their third game of the preseason. Usually at this point of the preseason, there starts to be more of a focus on the lineup that will be used on the night of the season opener. The Flyers still have a mix of veterans and hopefuls in camp, but their groups have shown some consistency about who is in line to make the team, at least so far.
Saturday night will present the next opportunity for players to put the drills and systems worked on in camp to the test. As the Washington Capitals come to town, the Flyers will ice a more experienced lineup. Game time is 7 p.m.
The Flyers lineup resembles a very possible opening night lineup. The extra players within this group were Logan Day and Matthew Strome, and neither figures to play. All three expected defensive pairings, headlined by Ivan Provorov and Ryan Ellis, are expected to play, as are the top four lines.
The Flyers lineup on Saturday night will consist of the following:
Forwards | ||
28 Claude Giroux | 14 Sean Couturier | 11 Travis Konecny |
25 James van Riemsdyk | 48 Morgan Frost | 86 Joel Farabee |
23 Oskar Lindblom | 19 Derick Brassard | 89 Cam Atkinson |
21 Scott Laughton | 44 Nate Thompson | 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel |
Defensemen | ||
9 Ivan Provorov | 94 Ryan Ellis | |
6 Travis Sanheim | 70 Rasmus Ristolainen | |
3 Keith Yandle | 61 Justin Braun | |
Goalies | ||
35 Martin Jones | 32 Felix Sandstrom |
For players like Rasmus Ristolainen, Morgan Frost and Nicolas Aube-Kubel, this marks their second straight game, a sign that Alain Vigneault is focused on getting veterans more work in these next couple of preseason games. Martin Jones gets the start for the second straight game as well and will play the entire game, according to Vigneault.
Forwards: Garnet Hathaway, Michael Sgarbossa, Nic Dowd, Anthony Mantha, Garrett Pilon, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Brett Leason, Aliaksei Protas, Carl Hagelin, Conor Sheary, Joe Snively, Evgeny Kuznetsov
Defensemen: Justin Schultz, Nick Jensen, Michal Kempny, Martin Fehervary, Tobias Geisser, Trevor van Riemsdyk
Goalies: Ilya Samsonov, Pheonix Copley
This is the first of three games in four nights for the Flyers, so there could be several players getting action in the next couple of days that still don't factor much into the Flyers plans this season.
Where to Watch
TV: NBC Sports Philadelphia+
Radio: Flyers Radio Network