Flyers-Avalanche preview

(Flyers’ team captain Claude Giroux/AP Photo)

The Flyers, coming off of their 4-1 victory over Florida on Thursday night, will continue their four-game home-stand tonight with a match-up against the Avalanche. Colorado’s off to a rough start, as they’re 4-6-5 so far. Despite beating Toronto Thursday night 4-3 in the shoot-out, they’ve lost five out of their last seven games, although three of those five aforementioned losses were either overtime or shoot-out losses. In that 4-3 shoot-out win, Colorado went a perfect 3-3 on their shoot-out attempts, which is only the second time that’s occurred in the NHL this season, to date. The only-other time that occurred was when Washington did that in their October 18th game against the Panthers.

Match-up

Philadelphia– 6-5-2-  3.2 goals/game, 2.9 goals against/game, 18.6% power-play percentage, 78% penalty-killing percentage, 8.85 penalty minutes/game
Colorado– 4-6-5,  2.4 goals/game, 2.9 goals against/game, 14.5% power-play percentage, 91.5% penalty-killing percentage, 12 penalty minutes/game

Philadelphia’s team rankings

Philadelphia, by any means, has no problem scoring goals this season, as they rank in the top five — fourth best, to be specific– in the NHL in goals for/game. They have three six-goal scorers, in Jakub Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and Michael Raffl. Voracek, who’s been on a tear lately, not only leads the team in points (6 goals, 13  assists), but is tied with Sidney Crosby for the league lead, with 19. Voracek ranks first overall in assists, and is second on the team in total shots, with 44, behind team-captain Claude Giroux, who has 58. With his second-period goal vs. Florida on Thursday, Voracek continued his point streak, which now stands at seven games (4 goals and 8 assists).

Giroux, however, despite leading the team in shots this season, only has two goals and a shooting percentage of just 3.4 so far, in 13 games. Although he hasn’t lit the lamp all that often, he’s tied with Voracek for the team lead in assists, and with Voracek and Tampa Bay center Tyler Johnson for the overall league lead. Currently, Giroux has a two-game point streak, as he’s had an assist in each of his past-two games.

One of the key’s for Philadelphia will be turning around their recent struggles on the man advantage, especially considering how strong Colorado is with a man down this year. Philadelphia hasn’t scored a power-play goal in five-straight games, going 0-12 in that span.

Colorado’s team rankings

Colorado this season ranks only 24th in the NHL in goals/game, with 2.4, and they haven’t been much better defensively, as they rank 21st in goals allowed/game, with 2.9. Their power-play units have been lackluster, too, as they rank just 23rd in power-play percentage, with 14.5. In their last-three games, Colorado’s 0-11 on the man advantage. Despite the lack of success for them on the man advantage, they do, however, impressively rank second in the NHL — behind only division-rival Chicago, who’s killed 92.9% of their penalties — in penalty-killing percentage, with 91.5. Even recently, Colorado’s been very impressive with a man down, as they’ve killed each of their penalties, per game, in seven out of their last eight games.

Philadelphia’s last game

In the Flyers’ 4-1 win vs. Florida, they were out-shot 35-30, had 35 hits (as did Florida), scored four goals– two per period — through two periods, and were a -3 in the giveaway/takeaway ratio (6-3). Florida won three-more face-offs — 39 to 36 — and had four-fewer penalty minutes; 8 to 12. With the win, it was Philadelphia’s third win in their past four meetings, spanning little over a season, vs. the Panthers.

Flyers’ third-line center Sean Couturier had two points, a goal and an assist each, in the first period on Thursday night. It was the fourth time in Couturier’s career that he recorded two points in a single period, and the first time that he’s done so in the first period.

Big news: Flyers’ defenseman Braydon Coburn, fortunately, who’s missed the past 12 games with a left-foot fracture, will return for tonight’s game. He’s yet to play in a game since the team’s season opener at Boston, due to blocking a shot in the game. Due to Coburn’s return, defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo will be a healthy scratch. 

Colorado’s last game

Colorado’s goal scoring on Thursday night vs. Toronto was solid and balanced, as none of their three regulation goal scorers had more than a goal each. Additionally, despite the shoot-out win, Florida had 22 takeaways vs. Colorado, and had one-fewer giveaway than Colorado — 3 to 4. Another key to tonight’s game, this time for Colorado, will be Colorado’s neutral, and defensive, zone giveaways. If Philadelphia can limit their own turnovers and force a ton of takeaways, like Toronto did, they’ll greatly increase their chances of winning or earning at least a point vs. Colorado.

Colorado will begin it’s four-game road trip tonight. Tonight, they’ll attempt to win back-to-back games for the first time this season. Philadelphia, coming into tonight’s game, has won four straight at home, outscoring their opponents 15-6.

Season series 

Last season, these two teams split their two regular-season meetings, with both teams winning their lone game at home. Over the last five seasons, Colorado’s won three out of the five overall meetings. These two teams will play again, and finish their 2014-15 season series, in a month and a half, at Colorado on New Year’s Eve.

Old friends

Former-Flyer Max Talbot, who got traded to Colorado for Steve Downie two Halloweens ago, will make his second trip back to Philadelphia since being traded; he returned there for the first time on February 6th, in a 3-1 loss. Since being traded to the Avs, Talbot has 27 points in 85 games. So far this season, he’s off to a slow start, registering zero goals and only two points, in 15 games. Talbot played for the Flyers for three seasons (2011-2014), previously. Another former Flyer will be making his return to Philadelphia, in center Danny Briere, who played with Philadelphia for six seasons; from 2008-2013, in which he was also a part of the team’s 2010 conference-championship team. Briere, this past June, was traded from Montreal to Colorado for P. A. Parenteau and a 2015 fifth-round pick. 

This past July, Colorado acquired a huge piece in former Flames/Penguins/Bruins right-winger Jarome Iginla, who signed a three-year, $16 million-dollar deal with Colorado. This season, Iginla has nine points in 15 games.

Keys to the Game

-Philadelphia’s (struggling) power-play vs. Colorado’s (strong) penalty-kill
-Puck possession: Philadelphia’s forecheck vs. Colorado’s defense
-Don’t rush Coburn (if you’re Flyers’ head coach Craig Berube), give him limited minutes in his return, to ease his way back into the lineup

Line Combinations/Defensive Pairings

LW	C	RW
Wayne Simmonds	Claude Giroux	Jakub Voracek
R.J. Umberger	Vincent Lecavalier	Chris VandeVelde
Brayden Schenn	Sean Couturier	Matt Read
Zac Rinaldo	Pierre-Édouard Bellemare	Jason Akeson

Defensive Pairings
Nicklas Grossmann	Mark Streit
Braydon Coburn	Luke Schenn
Michael Del Zotto	Nick Schultz

LW	C	RW
Gabriel Landeskog	Nathan Mackinnon	Jarome Iginla
Ryan O’Reilly	Matt Duchene	Jamie McGinn
Alex Tanguay	John Mitchell	Dennis Everberg
Cody McLeod	Marc-Andre Cliche	Max Talbot

Defensive Pairings
Jan Hejda	Erik Johnson
Nate Guenin	Tyson Barrie
Nick Holden	Zach Redmond

Starting Goalies

Philadelphia- Steve Mason (8 GP, W-L-OT/SO- 2-4-1, 2.88 GAA, .911 SV%, 0 SO)
Colorado- Reto Berra (5 GP, W-L-OT/SO- 2-0-1, 2.29 GAA, .929 SV%, 0 SO)

Player of the Game Prediction

Claude Giroux

Game Prediction

Flyers 3-2 in OT

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