Playing their fourth game in six nights, Rick Tocchet's Philadelphia Flyers (31-23-11) are back home on Saturday night to take veteran coach Rick Bowness's Columbus Blue Jackets (33-21-11). Entering play on Saturday, the Flyers have won six of their last eight games.
This is the first of two March meetings between Philadelphia and Columbus. Game time at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Saturday is 7:30 p.m. EDT. The game will be broadcast on NBCSP.
The Flyers have 17 games remaining in their schedule: eight at home and nine on the road. They won back-to-back games on Wednesday and Thursday, defeating the Washington Capitals 4-1 at Xfinity Mobile Arena and then capturing a 3-2 (1-0) shootout road win over a more rested Minnesota Wild team the next night.
The Flyers (73 points, 20 regulation wins) still face an uphill climb for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference but they've started to chip away at the deficit somewhat. Every game is a virtual must-win situation.
Tocchet's team has set a goal to keep the games meaningful for as long as possible. Beyond that, the Flyers have to simply let the chips fall where they may. Philly can only control their own play and worry about the game immediately in front of them.
Likewise, the Flyers cannot worry about catching the teams above the cutoff line for the playoffs before they catch the clubs immediately in front of them. The Blue Jackets (77 points, 23 RW) are the most immediate target. Philly needs to win both head-to-head home meetings with Columbus this month.
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch on Saturday.
1. Play from ahead
The Flyers went into the third period in Thursday's game trailing by a 2-1 score after a rough second period. However, Philly was still in the game thanks to a strong opening 20 minutes that produced a 1-0 lead.
Overall this season, the Flyers have only scored first in 21 of 65 games (13-4-4 record). They've yielded the first goal in 44 games (18-19-7); the NHL's seventh-best winning percentage when trailing first but far from ideal. This is a resilient team but resiliency has its limits. The Flyers had an off-day on Friday but a 4-in-6 is still a grind for any team.
Against Columbus on January 29, Philly found itself trailing in the opening minute of the game and then 2-1 heading to the first intermission. The Flyers went on to waste a Travis Konecny hat trick in a 5-3 loss after tying the game in the final five minutes of regulation.
Therein lies the peril of playing comeback hockey so often: it leaves no margin for error.
2. Tippett playing great hockey
Owen Tippett's combination of size, speed and physical strength make him a dominant force when he's on top of his game.. His issue has always been streakiness, particularly in terms of getting pucks on net consistently when not taking it directly to the net.
Lately, Tippett has been generating shots on goal from a variety of distances and angles in addition to earning breakaways and 2-on-1s with his speed and improved physicality. His single-season career high in goals is 28 achieved in 2023-24, with 27 tallies the previous year.
With 17 games left, Tippett is six goals away from tying his career high and seven from setting a new one. It will take a strong finish to attain it. If he can, however, the whole team's chances of staying in the hunt come April improve significantly, too.
Tippett has brought his A game in each of Philly's last two games. Can he make it three in a row? Even if he doesn't score, Tippett can impact a game when he presents a shift-in and shift-out threat to the opposition in all manpower situations.
Tippett's third period shorthanded goal in Minnesota was inarguably THE pivotal springboard to Philly's ultimate victory.
3. Special teams
The Flyers special teams have largely gone cold again of late at a very inopportune time. Entering Saturday, the power play has dropped the bottom (32nd) spot in the NHL at 15.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Philly is still looking to fully recover from the 1-for-4 penalty killing setback against the New York Rangers on Monday. The Flyers also gave up an opposing power play on Wednesday against Washington (2-for-3 on PK) and Thursday in Minnesota (2-for-3 again).
The Flyers, of course, still managed to win both the Washington and Minnesota games. Nevertheless, they desperately need to fully get their penalty kill back on track and to pull their power play out of the bottom rung of the league.
Nearly two-thirds of the teams in the NHL have cashed in at least 20 percent of their power play opportunities this season; 20 of the 32 clubs to be specific, with another (Chicago) at 19.8 percent. Columbus has scored on 20.3 percent of their power plays, ranking 18th in the NHL.
Philly's recent penalty kill swoon has caused the team to free fall from 14th in the league to 22nd overall (78.0 percent). Columbus ranks 24th at 77.1 percent PK success.
4. The Werenski factor
Columbus generates a large portion of its offense by having defensemen join the attack. Most of the time, Zach Werenski (20 goals, 48 assists, 68 points) is the main catalyst. Werenski, in fact, leads all Columbus players in points this season.
Denton Mateychuk (10 goals, 27 points, traditional +11 rating) and former Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov (eight goals, 26 points, +16) have had solid seasons in their own right. However, for the Flyers, beating Columbus starts with containing Werenski. Pay particular attention when the puck starts on the other side of the ice and Philly's weak side winger needs to track Werenski.
On the Philly side, the Flyers have three defensemen -- Jamie Drysdale, Travis Sanheim and Cam York -- who've reached at least 20 assists this season. Drysdale has also started to find the net more often with his shot.
In Minnesota, Emil Andrae scored the game's first goal. Andrae is generally more of a puck mover than a scoring threat at the NHL level but he's accomplished at triggering breakouts in transition.
The Flyers don't have a comparable offensive force to a Werenski or Minnesota's Quinn Hughes on the back end. Philly has to do it by committee. However, they do have some defensemen who are capable of chipping in offense from time to time. The Flyers may need that against the Blue Jackets because, similar to playing against Hughes, it's tough to shut down Werenski entirely in a game.
