Flyers’ Alain Vigneault: Two-game series this season will cause a ‘lot of passion and emotion’

The NHL, trying to reduce traveling to lower the risk of players contracting the coronavirus, has created a schedule unlike any of its previous seasons.

The schedule is dominated by two-game series in one city. The Flyers, for instance, are starting the season with two-game series against Pittsburgh and Buffalo, respectively, at the Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers will begin the season with eight two-game series. They will play 42 of their 56 games in two-game series against the same club.

Flyers coach Alain Vigneault, who is in his 18th season and with his fourth team, said “playing back-to-back against the same team is not something you see very often. It looks a lot like those first two games of a playoff series. So it’s very competitive.”

The Flyers started the season by beating the Penguins, 6-3, and 5-2. Those games weren’t as lopsided as the final scores might indicate.

“In the second game, Pittsburgh came out with more bite and more physicality,” Vigneault said before the Flyers hosted the Sabres on Monday. “So there is going to be some unpleasantness on the ice, as far as players remembering the game prior and having the opportunity to get right back at that same opponent.”

The schedule, he said, “should leave a lot of passion and emotion on the ice for both teams.”

To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 63rd anniversary of Willie O’Ree’s historic debut, the Flyers wore O’Ree stickers on their helmets for Monday’s game.

In 1958, O’Ree became the NHL’s first Black player.

To celebrate O’Ree’s breaking the color barrier, NBC Sports aired a feature on the Ed Snider Youth Foundation during an intermission Monday.

The Flyers placed Shayne Gostisbehere on non-roster status and recalled forward Connor Bunnaman from the taxi squad.

Gostisbehere is still sidelined because of the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols. While on the non-roster list, the defenseman still gets paid and counts against the cap, but the Flyers wanted room to add Bunnaman to the 23-man roster.

With Sean Couturier sidelined with a rib injury for at least two weeks, Vigneault expects the Flyers to use more than one line against units led by highly skilled offensive players, like Buffalo’s Jack Eichel. ... Vigneault is pleased with the play of the fourth line, which has Scott Laughton centering Michael Raffl and Nic Aube-Kubel: “They get pucks in deep and they go and forecheck, and when they forecheck, they bring that physicality that your team needs to wear down the opposition,” he said. “I think all those three guys bring that.”