Philadelphia Flyers

Flyers vs Preds, Game 54: Lines, Notes & How to Watch

Published

1 year ago

February 11, 2023

Wade Allison, Matt Duchene, Philadelphia Flyers

Wade Allison (left) and Nashville's Matt Duchene battle for the puck in an early-season game. The Flyers won, 3-1. Photo: AP.

Two teams that are on nice rolls — the Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators — will meet Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers (22-22-9) are on an 11-5-2 run, and they are coming off one of their most impressive wins this season, a 2-1 shootout victory Thursday over Edmonton.

Nashville (24-19-7) has won five of its last seven games. The Predators are coming off a dreadful 5-1 loss Tuesday to Vegas, a game in which they managed a season-low 17 shots.

Philly is eight points out of an Eastern Conference playoff spot and has to climb over four teams to get there. Can you say longshot?

The Predators are four points behind Minnesota for the final Western Conference wildcard, but they have two games in hand on the Wild.

This is the second and final matchup of the two-game season series. Sparked by Joel Farabee’s three points and Carter Hart’s strong goaltending, the Flyers registered a 3-1 win in Nashville on Oct. 22.

Saturday’ game is the first of back-to-back matinees for the Philadelphia Flyers, who host Dave Hakstol’s Seattle Kraken at 1 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday.

Flyers’ expected lineup

Hayes-Laughton-Tippett

JVR-Cates-Konecny

Farabee-Frost-Allison

Deslauriers-Brown-Bellows

Defense

Provorov-York

Sanheim-Ristolainen

Seeler-DeAngelo

Goalie

Hart (16-15-8, 2.80 GAA, .913 SP)

Predators’ expected lineup

Forsberg-Glass-Duchene

Niederreiter-Johansen-Granlund

Smith-Parssinen-Sissons

Trenin-Novak-Jeannot

Defense

McDonagh-Josi

Ekholm-Lauzon

Gravel-Fabbro

Goalie

Saros (19-14-5, 2.78, .918)

Breakaways

Filip Forsberg tops the Preds with 19 goals, and he is tied with defenseman Roman Josi with a team-leading 42 points. … Cam York and Wade Allison have plus-10 ratings, tops on the Flyers. … Veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh leads the Preds with a plus-13 rating. … Matt Duchene has nine goals in 19 career games vs. the Flyers. … James van Riemsdyk (nine goals in 16 games) has good career numbers against the Preds. … In three career games against Nashville, Hart is 3-0 with a 2.00 GAA and .939 save percentage. … Juuse Saros has struggled against Philly in his career: 2-3, 3.06 GAA, and an .893 save percentage.