The Flyers are off to a great start in the 2021 season after sweeping those pesky Penguins from Western Pennsylvania last week. The orange and black racked up 11 goals in the two games, while only giving up five. One of the five that they allowed was Sidney Crosby being one the best players in the world, hats off to him. While the offense was firing on all cylinders, the defense left a lot to be desired, giving up a number of odd-man rushes. In another blow to the defense, 2019-2020 Selke Award winning Center, Sean Couturier, is out for at least the next two weeks with an upper body injury. Replacing Couturier is young center, Morgan Frost, who made an appearance in the NHL last season, but was eventually sent back down. Frost is our number one player to watch in tonight’s game.
Morgan Frost
I referenced in one of my previous posts that Alain Vigneault shows a lot of confidence in his players. This is another great example. Frost will be centering Oskar Lindblom and Travis Konecny on the top line while also being on the top powerplay unit. It would also be safe to assume that he could see time on the penalty kill as well. In 20 games with the big club last season, Frost potted two goals while picking up five helpers, good enough for seven points in his first taste of NHL action. The 2017 27th overall pick has a very good chance to cement himself in the Flyers’ lineup on a nightly basis even after Coots makes his return. Putting Frost on the top line makes sense because he is playing with two highly skilled wingers in Oskar Lindblom and TK. Konecny is coming off a three goal, four point performance on Friday night, and Lindblom does everything on the ice. Lindblom blocks shots, kills penalties, forechecks hard, and scores goals. The Flyers have good enough depth that they do not need Frost to be Couturier, they just need him to be responsible defensively and chip in on offense whenever he’s given the chance.
The Defense
If it wasn’t for Carter Hart, the Flyers may have lost Friday night. Hart was absolutely spectacular and made save after save. Hart stopped 31 shots of the 33 he faced, and many of them came on Penguins’ powerplays or counter rushes. The defenders need to shore things up in front of him. It’s one thing to allow a two on one once or twice a game, but it’s completely different when it seems like the other team has numbers moving down the ice. So far, because of Carter Hart and the offense scoring a lot of goals, it hasn’t hurt the Flyers, but they need to figure it out before it does.
Who Matches Up Against Jack Eichel?
The Sabres’ captain is one of the best players in the league. He has lead Buffalo in scoring in each of the last four years, being among the league leaders last season. This season, Eichel has Taylor Hall on his line, and the two have found chemistry quick. Hall, who surprised a lot of people when he signed with Buffalo for only one year, won the Hart Trophy in 2017-2018 when he was with the New Jersey Devils. Eichel and Hall are right up there with some of the best lines in hockey and will be interesting to see how Alain Vigneault matches up to them. We could see the Raffl, Laughton, NAK line for the first few shifts as we did against the Penguins. I also would not be surprised to see Frost’s line out there against them. Lindblom is very responsible defensively, as is Frost, and Konecny’s shot-blocking work goes unnoticed most nights.
The Flyers are in a very good position to be at least 3-1 heading into Boston for a tough series with the Bruins. If they go into Boston 4-0 and split, they are 5-1 and have two with the Devils after that. The Flyers need to max out the number of points they can get over the next week. If they take care of business, like they should, by the end of January they could be rolling and Sean Couturier could potentially be coming close to returning.
