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Glen Stricker The Hockey Writers

Published on Sunday, December 11, 2016

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Preview: Flyers Head to Motor City in Search of 9th Straight

What else can be said about the Philadelphia Flyers other than that they are scorching hot? The Flyers made it eight straight wins yesterday afternoon when they welcomed the Dallas Stars into the Wells Fargo Center. It wasn’t easy, but they found a way to come out with the ‘W’ when the game clock hit 0:00. As they have done throughout the entirety of their streak, they scratched, fought and clawed their way to winning in dramatic fashion.

They won’t have much time to relish in their latest victory as they turn it right around today traveling to Detriot to take on the Red Wings. Today’s matchup will be the third and final meeting between the two squads this year, with the previous two games needing overtime to determine the winner. The Flyers won 4-3 in the overtime on November 2, while Detriot beat the Flyers in a shootout just a week later.

Philadelphia Flyers at Detriot RedWings

Joe Louis Arena – 5:00 p.m. EST

Broadcast channels – CSN Philadelphia; 97.5 The Fanatic

2016-17 Season Series: 1-1

Philadelphia Flyers: 17-10-3 – 37 Points

Road Record: 6-5-1

Hot Players: Jake Voracek, Brayden Schenn, Steve Mason

Scratches: Nick Schultz, Michael Del Zotto, Taylor Leier

Injuries: Sean Couturier (lower body), Michal Neuvirth (lower body), Matt Read (upper body)

Projected lines:

Forwards:

Michael Raffl — Claude Giroux — Jakub Voracek

Travis Konecny — Brayden Schenn — Wayne Simmonds

Nick Cousins — Boyd Gordon — Dale Weise

Chris VandeVelde — Pierre-Edouard Bellemare — Roman Lyubimov

Defense:

Ivan Provorov — Andrew MacDonald

Mark Streit — Radko Gudas

Brandon Manning — Shayne Gostisbehere

Starting Goaltender:

Anthony Stolarz

Detriot Red Wings: 13-12-3 – 29 Points

Home Record: 10-2-2

Hot Players: Artemi Panarin, Artem Anisimov, Patrick Kane

Scratched: Drew Miller, Ryan Sproul

Injuries: Darren Helm (upper body), Brendan Smith (lower body), Tyler Bertuzzi (ankle), Justin Abdelkader (lower body), Jonathan Ericsson (back)

Projected lines:

Forwards:

Anthony Mantha — Henrik Zetterberg — Tomas Tatar

Gustav Nyquist — Riley Sheahan — Thomas Vanek

Luke Glendening — Frans Nielsen — Dylan Larkin

Tomas Jurco — Andreas Athanasiou — Steve Ott

Defense:

Danny DeKeyser — Mike Green

Brian Lashoff — Alexey Marchenko

Niklas Kronwall — Xavier Ouellet

Starting Goaltender:

Jimmy Howard

Game Notes

1) The Flyers are trying to make it their ninth straight win with a victory this evening. However, it won’t come easy as they are in their third game in four nights and their second in as many days. They won yesterday after trailing most of the game until the final four minutes of play when a pair of Brayden Schenn goals lifted the team from a 2-1 deficit to a 3-2 lead, ultimately coming away with a 4-2 victory.

2) The Red Wings have been struggling as of late at home. They are a measly 2-7-2 in their last 11 games at “The Joe” after losing 4-1 on Friday to a red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets.

3) Talking about red-hot, Jake Voracek has been a man on fire over the last week. He has 15 points over his last eight games played, registering at least a point in seven of those eight. He’s had eight points alone in the last two games (2 goals, 6 assists) and as a result finds himself second to only Connor McDavid in the entire league in points with 32.

4) With Red Wings looking to turn their fortunes around tonight, they might be catching a break as the Flyers will start rookie Anthony Stolarz between the pipes rather than the hot Steve Mason who has won seven consecutive games. Stolarz, believe it or not, started the Flyers current eight-game winning streak with a victory against the Calgary Flames back on November 27 — his first career NHL start.

5) Brayden Schenn hasn’t gotten off to the start of the season the way he wanted to, but after posting his second career hat-trick yesterday afternoon propelling the Flyers to their eighth win in a row, Schenn will look to build off that and begin to turn his season around from an offensive production standpoint.

It’s ironic that rookie Anthony Stolarz was in net when the streak all started and now it’s up to him to keep the ball rolling. The Flyers are hoping that it’s not Stolarz who will be in net for when the streak is over but they will be up against a desperate and angry team in Detriot Sunday night. The Flyers sit fourth in the Metropolitan Division, a point behind the Blue Jackets, and are first in the Eastern Conference Wild Card standings and are 8-2-0 in their last 10 games.


Tagged in this article

Brayden Schenn Steve Mason Anthony Stolarz Philadelphia Flyers National Hockey League
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