Brian Elliott gets his first start in nearly three weeks as Flyers host Rangers tonight
Elliott will be opposed by 25-year-old rookie Igor Shesterkin, who is making his first start against the Flyers.
Now that the midseason trip to Lake Tahoe that the Flyers really didn’t need is behind them, it’s time for the club to get back to a little normalcy. They’re going to play a lot of hockey the next two months starting tonight with a visit from the Rangers.
“Here we go!” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault exclaimed, channeling his inner-Tony Romo.
If nothing else, they’ve already picked up a victory of sorts with the likely return of Claude Giroux, who was on the Voorhees practice ice for a second consecutive day Wednesday morning. Vigneault met with the media while Giroux was still skating, so unofficially Giroux is a game-time decision.
“I think he’s gonna wanna play,” Vigneault said. “That’s what I can tell you about my captain.”
The Flyers have slipped from second place to fifth place in the East Division, a direct result of playing just two games in 17 days and picking up only one point.
Even with Giroux’s expected return, the Flyers will be without forwards Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Oskar Lindblom and Jake Voracek, and defenseman Justin Braun. Braun skated on Wednesday and is hoping to return for Saturday’s game at Buffalo.
Based on the league’s 14-day quarantine period, Voracek could come off the COVID-19 protocol list on Thursday, Laughton and Lindblom on Friday, Konecny on Sunday.
Just three other players among the league’s 30 other teams were on the latest protocol list released yesterday -- Ottawa’s Ryan Dzingel, Toronto’s Alexander Barbanove, and Kaapo Kakko, of the Rangers. An updated list will come out later today.
Flyers lose Friedman
Ron Hextall’s first twist of the knife as Penguins general manager was claiming Flyers’ defenseman Mark Friedman off waivers on Wednesday. Flyers’ general manager Chuck Fletcher had exposed Friedman on Tuesday presumably with the intention of sending him to the taxi squad, but Hextall scooped him up just before Wednesday’s noon deadline. Friedman skated with the Flyers this morning.
Friedman, who was asked to play forward for the first time in his pro career on Sunday against Boston, could get a chance to face his former team relatively soon as Pittsburgh hosts the Flyers three times in five days next week.
Friedman, a third-round pick in 2014, was part of Hextall’s first draft class as Flyers’ general manager. Travis Sanheim and Nic Aube-Kubel were the Flyers’ first two picks that year, Oskar Lindblom was selected in the fifth round.
Ice chips
Brian Elliott will make his first start tonight in nearly three weeks, a 2-1 loss to the Bruins on Feb. 5. Elliott hasn’t played against the Rangers since shutting them out three years ago. Not sure if this is karma, but Giroux had the only regular-season hat trick of his career that night, a 5-0 Flyers win on April 7, 2018.
Goalie Igor Shesterkin, who was the first star when the Rangers beat Washington on Saturday, will make his first career start against the Flyers.
Reminder that NBCSN has tonight’s telecast. Puck drops at 7 p.m. with Brendan Burke, Keith Jones and Brian Boucher on the call.
The Rangers are in sixth place in the division with 15 points, four behind the Flyers.
Artemi Panarin will miss tonight’s game while he deals with accusations that he was in a physical altercation in Russia 10 years ago. Colleague Mike Sielski wrote a strong column pointing out the difficult bravery shown by Panarin, who is the Rangers’ best player and was the first star when New York beat the Flyers in a shootout last Thursday.
Sunday’s Flyers-Bruins game drew 1.019 million viewers, a regular-season viewership record in the 15 years NBCSN has had hockey. So it seems like everybody had fun in Tahoe except for the Flyers.