The (13-20-8) Philadelphia Flyers will welcome home a familiar face in Michael Raffl with the (20-16-2) Dallas Stars looking to extend their little 2-game win streak after beating Buffalo and Detriot last week. Nick Seeler will surprisingly play LW tonight in a comedic move at this point from the coaching staff. You can catch the game at 7 pm on NBCSP.

Carter Hart will get the start in goal as he tries to help lead this sad team to their first win in 2022. Hart is currently 7-13-5 on the season with a 2.90 GAA and a .911 SV%. It’s a real shame his record looks the way it does right now because without him this team is currently fighting for a top-three spot in the basement with Montreal, Arizona, and Ottawa.

Nick Seeler

Linus Sandin, Felix Sandstrom, and Connor Bunnaman were all called up to the taxi squad this morning, but will not play tonight against Dallas. Bunnaman and Sandin both played with the Phantoms on Saturday and Sunday so the Flyers don’t want to put them through three games in three nights. 

With all of that happening, that leaves Nick Seeler getting a look at LW after he had a good look at practice at the position according to Mike Yeo. Yeo also added that Seeler has played a little LW back when he was in college, so that immediately calmed my nerves completely, thanks Yeo. 

Can’t help to think back to when they did this with Sam Morin and tried to convince us it would work after they got bodied in the bubble by Matt Martin and company.

It’s comedy at this point and with how this season has continued to unfold, I genuinely hope he has a good game and confuses the shit out of all of us. 

Wade Allison

In his first game of the season up with the Flyers, Wade Allison suffered a non-contact MCL sprain against the Sabres with about 10 minutes remaining in the 2nd period. 

You can only feel for Wade here. Having to deal with a high-ankle sprain suffered in a pointless rookie game right before training camp. Then, dealing with an elbow issue after fully recovering from that ankle injury, only to come back healthy and sprain your MCL in your first game back up in the big show. 

Yeo did say they hope to have Wade available after we get back from the All-Star break coming up soon, so that’s some good news in what is an overall awful situation. 

Keith Yandle

Keith Yandle will tie Doug Jarvis’s record of 964 consecutive regular-season games played in the NHL when he takes the ice tonight paired with Cam York.. Yandle will tie the record tonight then break it tomorrow against the Islanders. 

Phil Kessel is right behind Yandle with 940 straight games played, so we’ll see how the Flyers deploy him once his breaks the record tomorrow against the Isalnders. 

I have my feelings about Yandle and his play this year but I’ll save them for another article. 964 straight games is an impressive accomplishment to achieve, especially now with COVID protocols breaking a lot of players’ streaks (Giroux last season and Provorov this year). 

Flyers Line up vs the Dallas Stars

James van Riemsdyk – Claude Giroux – Cam Atkinson 

Oskar Lindblom – Scott Laughton – Travis Konecny 

Gerry Mayhew – Morgan Frost – Max Willman 

Nick Seeler – Jackson Cates – Zack MacEwen

Ivan Provorov – Justin Braun

Travis Sanheim – Rasmus Ristolainen 

Keith Yandle – Cam York

Seeler

Carter Hart

Gotta Get the First One 

The Flyers record this season after giving up the first goal of the game is putrid. They’re 2-18-3 when scored on first and sure enough fall apart soon after, losing all confidence in what they set out to do. 

The Flyers haven’t scored the first goal of the game since January 8th against the Sharks when JVR made in 1-0 in the third period. Cam York followed that goal up with his first NHL point in his career on the power play on another James van Riemsdyk goal. 

In usual Flyers fashion, they blew that 2-0 lead and lost in OT after Tomas Hertl decided we weren’t worth his time anymore and in fact, let it be known it was actually time for him to collect his hatty and go home.

Power Play Struggles

To put it lightly, the power play makes me sick, and I genuinely think that’s something eye-opening to say considering the season we’ve watched. There’s no pop or chemistry on either units, managing to go 3/21 in their last 6 games. They’ve squeaked out 2 total goals in their last 12 power play attempts and somewhere out in the world right now, Michel Therrien is sipping on his drink having a nice laugh. 

Give me a PP1 unit of:

Giroux (left-wall), Lindblom (net-front), Frost (right-wall), Konecny (slot) and Cam York (point). Let’s see what they can do in a 7-game stretch, you have absolutely nothing to lose.

Parx Sportsbook

If you have any kind of confidence the Flyers will beat this Dallas Stars team, props to you because I ran out of hope when they made Peyton Krebs look like Kyle Connor on Saturday afternoon. 

However, Parx is currently running a special for Claude Giroux and Cam Atkinson to both have 1+ point tonight. Giroux has 3G-1A in his last 5 games and Atkinson has 3A in his last 5 games, so if you’re feeling these two do any damage tonight, lock it in. 

Mandatory Credit: Flyers twitter / Zack Hill Flyers PR