Each of the Flyers' next three games, starting with Tuesday's game in Columbus, will be divisional games. While every game and every standings point matter as Philly tries to claw its way upward in the wildcard race, games such as Tuesday's take on added importance.
Entering Tuesday's match, the Blue Jackets hold the lower wildcard position in the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Flyers, who have played one more game than the Blue Jackets, trail Columbus by three standings points plus a steep disadvantage in the regulation wins (16 to 11) tiebreaking category.
Bottom line: While a mid-January game cannot accurately described as a must-win, Tuesday's game could mean as much as a four-point swing in the standings. If the Flyers beat the Blue Jackets in regulation, they are within one point plus a 16-12 RW tiebreaker disadvantage of catching Columbus. Lose in regulation and the Flyers fall behind by five points plus a 16 to 12 tiebreaker disadvantage.
2. Konecny's line
As long as they are kept intact by head coach Tortorella, the trio of leading scorer Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett and Morgan Frost holds the promise of being the team's most offensively dynamic line. The trio with Noah Cates centering Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink has been the team's best all-around (with and without the puck) line for the last six weeks.
Tortorella had Konecny together with Tippett and Frost for portions of the 2023-24 season. Most recently, they were reunited in the third period of the Dallas game.
3. Fedotov's turn
With the Flyers in the second game of a back-to-back, it is likely that the Flyers will tab Ivan Fedotov to start the game in Columbus. Fedotov started the Jan. 5 and Jan. 7 games against Toronto, under the tough circumstances of previously not having dressed (either as a starter or backup) in the previous month.
The Flyers's goaltending depth chart behind Samuel Ersson remains an ongoing competition between Fedotov and rookie Aleksei Kolosov. That makes Tuesday's game imperative for Fedotov to give the Flyers a chance to win.
4. Flyers power play
The Flyers have clicked for two power play goals apiece in the last two games. One would have to go back to Jan. 31 and Feb. 3, 2019, for the last time that Philadelphia scored multiple power play goals in back-to-back matches.
Philly may not need two-plus power play goals against the Columbus PK (ranked 27th leaguewide at 73.4 percent success) in order to win, as long as Philly outperforms the Blue Jackets at 5-on-5. Nevertheless, this is an important opportunity area for Philly against an opponent that has gotten on a roll lately. Bagging at least one power play goal and killing off their own penalties could prove to be a deciding factor on Tuesday.
5. Energy management for three periods
The Flyers are in the midst of an extremely busy portion of the season: six games in 10 nights including the current stretch of three games in four nights. Maintaining structure and keeping shifts short whenever possible are vital to having success during such times.
Saturday's game against Anaheim was a night where the Wells Fargo Center crowd supplied a huge dose of energy (all night) from which the team supplemented their own competitive drive.
Monday's game started out quite flat from the Flyers' standpoint. An animated locker room discussion during the first intermission was followed up by an excellent latter 40 minutes of the game to overcome the defending champion Panthers.
The latter means of winning a game is far from ideal. While the Flyers never panicked against Florida -- and have shown themselves repeatedly to be a resilient team when forced to chase a game -- overcoming poor starts and multi-goal deficits is not a reliable formula for success.
