The Flyers take on the Boston Bruins today at 3pm on NBC. This is the first of three round-robin games the Flyers will play going into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. These teams played each other three times during the season and every game was tightly contested.

Head-to-Head Matchups

November 10: 3-2 Shootout win @ BOS
January 13: 6-5 Shootout win @ PHI
March 10: 2-0 Loss @ PHI

Every single one of these matchups this year ended up being nail-biting, edge of your seat type of games. Between Farabee scoring on the road in the shootout and Marchand completely missing the puck to lose the game in Philly, these two teams have gave us some memorable moments. The Flyers played the Bruins right before the COVID-19 stoppage and lost 2-0 at home, but the game was close until the final whistle.

Brad Marchand with maybe the worst shootout attempt in history @spittinchiclets pic.twitter.com/hdOd4EpUMK

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) January 14, 2020

Lineups

The lineup for the Flyers going into yesterday’s practice was as follows:

Giroux – Couturier – Voracek

Laughton – Hayes – Konecny

Van Riemsdyk – Grant – Aube-Kubel

Raffl – Thompson – Pitlick

Provorov – Niskanen

Sanheim – Myers

Hagg – Braun

Hart

Joel Farabee very well could slot into one of those bottom-six forward spots before puck drop. Overall this is the lineup we expected the Flyers to ice, taking no chances and throwing their most experienced players in off the start.

The Bruins have been dealing with a lot of injuries going into this round-robin, on some important pieces too. Their lineup is:

#NHLBruins practice lines:

Marchand – Bergeron – Pastrnak
DeBrusk – Krejci – Studnicka/Ritchie
Kuhlman/Kuraly – Coyle – Bjork
Nordstrom – Lindholm – Wagner

Chara – McAvoy
Krug – Carlo
Grzelcyk – Lauzon
Moore – Clifton

Halak
Lagace

Absent: Rask, Kase pic.twitter.com/nNtFGInASn

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) August 1, 2020

Marchand left an exhibition game against Columbus on Friday with a lower-body injury and there was fear he would have to miss this game, but given he practiced with the team yesterday I think we can assume he will play. Losing Rask and Kase would hurt the Bruins, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it affects today’s game.

Overview

Obviously there is a lot on the line, but going into this round-robin as the fourth-seed it’s almost as if the Flyers are playing with house money. If they lose these round-robin games? Well, they are where they started. If they win them? They could take the first seed in the East in three games. The Flyers are in a very opportunistic position, let’s see if they can take advantage of it.