As the first-place Bruins prepare for the league’s first NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe event, the Philadelphia Flyers are heading into Sunday’s tilt in a less-than-ideal situation. The team has been ravaged by COVID-19 this month, missing four games due to a team outbreak that sidelined a total of eight players.
All seven Flyers still on the COVID protocol list as of Thursday will not make the trip to Lake Tahoe.
Those seven players are captain Claude Giroux, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Jakub Voracek, Oskar Lindblom, Justin Braun, and Morgan Frost, who was already on injured reserve. The one player to rejoin the team was Travis Sanheim, who was the first player to quarantine in the outbreak, though in the end he never tested positive.
The Flyers offense is especially shorthanded, with five of their top nine forwards out. The team is down three centers, a right winger and a left winger.
Though the Flyers remain on track to participate at Lake Tahoe, in the case that their Covid situation takes a turn for the worse, the Bruins could end up playing a different team all together. According to NBC Sports, “there are other teams ready and waiting to take over in case the Flyers are unable to go.”
Bruins look to exploit Flyers’ mismatched lineup and inexperienced replacements
The Flyers were able to field just enough players to compete in Thursday night's shootout loss to the Rangers. In that game, three players made their season debuts for Philly -- forwards David Kase (brother of Bruins forward Ondrej Kase), Andy Andreoff and 21-year-old Belarusian winger Maksim Sushko. For Shushko, it was also his first time suiting up for an NHL team.
Despite the Flyers going 10 days between their previous two games, the Bruins can’t come into the game being complacent. While the Flyers ultimately lost to the Rangers 3-2 in a shootout Thursday night, they didn’t show much rust out of the gate, scoring 59 seconds into the game and relying on their newly created top two lines to stay competitive.
The Flyers seemed rested and energized, rather than hindered by the fact that they were forced to miss eight days worth of ice time due to a mandated quarantine.
How the Flyers and the Bruins match up this weekend
Boston holds an impressive 4-0 record against Philadelphia in 2021. The Bruins have hung 17 goals on the scoreboard against the Flyers so far this season, a 4.25 goals per game average. However, the Bruins offense has seemed less urgent and effective in their current two-game losing streak.
The B’s are coming into the outdoor contest after losing their first home game of the season in a lackluster 3-2 loss to the Devils. In the game the Bruins lost forward David Krejci to a lower-body injury. Coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t have an update on his status after the game.
On the other side, even with a difficult personnel predicament, Alain Vigneault can get the best out of his players, which he proved in the team’s high intensity shootout loss to the Rangers Thursday night.
In net, both the Bruins and the Flyers will send out their top goaltenders. Tuukka Rask will come in fresh, with Coach Bruce Cassidy making the decision to start Jaroslav Halak on Thursday and give Rask the rest. Flyers netminder Carter Hart was a key factor in allowing his team to remain competitive in last night's game in New York, which eventually helped the team grab a point despite getting outshot 33-22.
The Bruins will look to continue to exploit Hart, whom they have scored 15 on this season. That’s the most goals any goaltender has given up to the Bruins in 2021. Maybe the worst stat for Hart in his 2021 season is the fact that he's given up an average of five goals per game against the Bruins.
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