Game Preview, Philadelphia Flyers @ Pittsburgh Penguins, 11/4/2021: Lines, how to watch

Who: Philadelphia Flyers (5-2-1, 11 points, 4th place Metropolitan division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (3-3-2, 8 points, 8th place Metropolitan division)

When: 7:00 p.m. eastern

How to Watch: AT&T Sportsnet locally in Pittsburgh, NBC Sports Philadelphia, ESPN+

Opponent Track: As mentioned in the Sunday Standings column, it just feels like the Flyers have been under the radar this season, but they’re off to a good start. They shutout Arizona last game by a score of 3-0, with Carter Hart recording a 29-save shutout. That was a bounce-back performance from being shutout themselves 4-0 at the end of a Western road swing last week in Calgary.

Pens path ahead: This long home-stand is almost over, just tonight and the Minnesota Wild coming to town on Saturday. After that, the Pens head to Chicago next Tuesday, and are back in Pittsburgh a week from tonight (Nov 11) to meet the Florida Panthers.

Season Series: The Pens and Flyers will play four times this season. After tonight, the Flyers come back to town on December 23rd. Then Pittsburgh makes two trips to the Eastern side of the commonwealth to play on January 6th and then the season series concludes on Pittsburgh’s Game No. 80 of the year on April 24th.

Random fact: Per Pens PR: since entering the league in 2006-07, no defenseman has more points against the Flyers than Kris Letang (41).

SBN Team Counterpart: Pull up on Broad Street Hockey for all the Flyers news you could hope for.

Stats

From hockeydb:

Who’s hot:

—Sean Couturier has a team-high nine points (4G+5A) in the six games played over the last two weeks, Claude Giroux (3G+5A) isn’t far behind him in the last six contests. New addition Cam Atkinson has had a hot stick as well, scoring five goals in this strech, and leads his new club with six goals on the season.

—Amazingly enough, Derrick Brassard has caught on in Philly and been impressive early in the season with six points (1G+5A) in the eight games. Brassard’s gotten a better than expected chance with the absence of Kevin Hayes (pre-season surgery) and made something of it so far. We’ve seen this song and dance before, so we’ll see if he can stay consistent over the long haul. Brassard is also on his way to completing what I like to call “The Asham” by playing all of the old Atlantic Division teams. Brassard’s up to playing for the Rangers, Islanders, Penguins and Flyers over his career. Amazingly, Asham is also well-liked among just about all fanbases, too. Will Brassard get to New Jersey and complete the Asham?

Who’s not:

—Ivan Provorov only has one assist to start the season, and for a defender who has hit the back of the net a combined 20 times in the last two shortened seasons, he hasn’t scored a goal yet this season.

—Always liked the gritty and energetic forechecking play of Nicolas Aube-Kubel as a lower-line winger, but he’s been relegated to healthy scratch territory a bit this season and seems to perhaps be a little out of favor at the moment. “NAK” has also been fined for a kneeing incident this year.

Tuesday Game Lines

FORWARDS

Claude Giroux - Sean Couturier - Travis Konecny

Joel Farabee - Derick Brassard - Cam Atkinson

Oskar Lindblom - Scott Laughton - James van Riemsdyk

Nicolas Aube-Kubel - Nate Thompson - Zack MacEwen

DEFENSEMEN

Ivan Provorov / Justin Braun

Travis Sanheim / Rasmus Ristolainen

Keith Yandle / Nick Seeler

Announced Starting Goalie: Carter Hart

Scratches: Patrick Brown, Ryan Ellis (injured)

IR: Sam Morin, Kevin Hayes (LTIR), Wade Allison

—Laughton and Braun were both absent at practice, but coach Alain Vignault expects both to play tonight.

—But the bad injury news is that Ryan Ellis will miss his seventh straight game tonight with a lower body problem. Ellis isn’t on the two-game road trip that starts tonight, so he’ll miss at least an eighth game as well.

Hart and Jarry

The goalies of these fierce rivals are linked in many ways. Both hail from Western Canada, with Hart coming from Alberta and Jarry now making his home there. In 2014-15 they competed against each other in the Western Hockey League, they crossed paths again in the AHL in 2018-19 and in modern days train together during the off-seasons. Each have 107 career games in the NHL currently, making for an astounding amount of shared material between the frenemies.

Further, both Hart and Jarry each had disappointing 2020-21’s as starting NHL goalies. Perhaps fittingly enough both have very similar bounce-back seasons starting off this year with almost identical stat lines so far— complete with matching 3-2-1 records in 2021-22, a .926 save% for Jarry compared to a .928 save% for Hart and GAA’s in the same neighborhood as well (2.15 for Jarry and 2.33 for Hart).

The season outcomes and futures of both Pennsylvania NHL teams are wrapped up in two very similar young goaltenders, a funny twist of fate for such long-term rivals considering the shared paths of these netminders.

And now for the Pens..

—Nice touch by the Pens to feature Boyle and Lindbolm at the top of the graphic above for Hockey Fights Cancer Night in Pittsburgh. Both players are survivors.

Projected Lines

Forwards

Jake Guentzel - Jeff Carter - Danton Heinen

Jason Zucker - Evan Rodrigues - Kasperi Kapanen

Zach Aston-Reese - Teddy Blueger - Brock McGinn

Drew O’Connor - Brian Boyle - Dominik Simon/Sam Lafferty

Defense

Mike Matheson / Kris Letang

P.O Joseph / John Marino

Juuso Riikola / Mark Friedman

Probable Starting Goalie: Tristan Jarry

Scratches: One of Simon/Lafferty

COVID non-roster list: Sidney Crosby, Brian Dumoulin, Marcus Pettersson, Chad Ruhwedel

IR: Evgeni Malkin (knee), Bryan Rust (week-to-week injury)

—We got to almost have nice things for exactly one game, with now the COVID list swelling back to four players and a bare bones lineup back en vogue for the Pens.

—Simon worked with the second power play, which might signal a leg up for him to dress tonight, but it wouldn’t be that unheard of for the team to just cycle someone else in for a game (or have Letang stay out longer) if they want to go with the speed and physicality of Lafferty to combat the Flyers. Riveting stuff, we’ll see which is the odd man out by game time.

Hockey fights cancer night

More from the Pens about tonight’s special night:

Tonight, the Penguins are holding Hockey Fights Cancer (HFC) Awareness Night. The night, which is presented by UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, is part of a league-wide program to raise awareness and funds for the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer initiative.

Penguins players will wear commemorative purple jerseys and use purple-taped sticks during pre-game warm-ups. The numbers on the back of the warmup jerseys will feature a list of 200 names submitted by Penguins season ticket holders. The names included on the numbers honor season ticket holders, as well as their immediate family members that have been impacted by cancer. It could be the name of someone currently battling cancer, a survivor or someone who lost their fight. With each name, there is an accompanied ribbon with a specific color to represent which type of cancer they have been impacted by.

Forward Brian Boyle, who overcame a bout with chronic myeloid leukemia, is a strong advocate for the league’s HFC initiative. His most notable performance in his career came on November 5, 2018, just twelve days after his cancer diagnosis, when as a member of the New Jersey Devils he recorded his first career hat trick coincidentally against the Penguins on the team’s HFC Awareness night.

Milestones

• Jeff Carter is set to appear in career game number 1,100 tonight, fittingly enough against the team that drafted him