Columbus Blue Jackets at Philadelphia Flyers
November 14, 2014 – 7:00 pm EST
Wells Fargo Center – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Radio – WBNS 97.1 – TV – Fox Sports Ohio
Opponent’s Blog: Broad Street Hockey
First and foremost, WTF? The Flyers have not played since Saturday. Travel, you might ask? Nope. This is their fourth straight home game. They’ve had SIX. DAYS. OFF.
That can work both ways, I suppose. They’ve been playing well, and sometimes a long layoff can sap some of the mojo from a hot team. It may bring legs not quite up to game speed. Conversely, however, it may bring a really, really rested team bent on destruction of a wounded, fragile, and struggling team.
Fun times, no?
At any rate, this game is Scott Hartnell’s first return to Philly since the trade, and in honor of the moment out friends over at BSH remembered his five best moments as a Flyer. To say that Hartsy has been one of the Jackets’ best and most consistent players would be an understatement. As the lineup has crumbled due to injury, Hartnell is one of the few guys who hasn’t missed a game, and is playing at a near-point-per-game pace with 5/9/14 in 15 games. With all the chaos around him, maybe we can finally say it wasn’t Giroux, eh?
Sadly, though Artem Anisimov and Sergei Bobrovsky traveled with the team, neither is going to be able to play tonight. [edit] Bob has been activated, and will be the backup tonight. Matt Calvert and Jack Skille did not make the trip. All that means–you guessed it–the same forward lines as Tuesday. I’ll give you a moment to force the bile back down your throats.
Good?
OK. Of note, however, is that Jack Johnson does return tonight and should at least give a tiny bit more legitimacy in the place of Fredric St. Denis.
The Flyers started out 1-3-2 in their first six, but have come on lately to win six of eight, and they are in a stretch of six of eight at home. Coincidence? Nope. They’ve been very good at home, Steve Mason’s bitching about the lights notwithstanding.
I don’t even know how to try to prescribe wins for this team anymore. Stay out of the box? Score goals? Stop getting lit up on defense? How much can we really break this down anymore?
If that doesn’t get you fired up, I don’t know what will.
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets
(4-10-1, 9 Points; 8th division, 15th conference)
| Scott Hartnell | Boone Jenner | Cam Atkinson |
| Brian Gibbons | Ryan Johansen | Nick Foligno |
| Corey Tropp | Alexander Wennberg | Adam Cracknell |
| Dana Tyrell | Michael Chaput | Jared Boll |
| Fedor Tyutin | David Savard |
| Tim Erixon | James Wisniewski |
| Jack Johnson | Dalton Prout |
| Curtis McElhinney |
| Anton Forsberg |
Philadelphia Flyers
(7-5-2, 16 Points; 5th division, 11th conference)
| Wayne Simmonds | Claude Giroux | Jakub Voracek |
| R.J. Umberger | Sean Couturier | Matt Read |
| Brayden Schenn | Vincent Lecavalier | Jason Akeson |
| Zac Rinaldo | Pierre-Edouard Bellemare | Chris VandeVelde |
| Nicklas Grossmann | Mark Streit |
| Braydon Coburn | Carlo Colaiacovo |
| Michael Del Zotto | Nick Schultz |
| Steve Mason |
| Ray Emery |
Season Series
11/14/14 – Columbus at Philadelphia
11/22/14 – Columbus at Philadelphia
12/09/14 – Philadelphia at Columbus
02/13/15 – Philadelphia at Columbus
02/17/15 – Columbus at Philadelphia
Head to Head Stats
Philadelphia Columbus 3.21 (4) GPG 2.53 (20) 2.93 (21) GAPG 3.67 (30) 22.4% (8) PP% 21.0% (11) 80.0% (16) PK% 77.2% (23) Wayne Simmonds, 7 G leader Nick Foligno, 7 Jakub Voracek, 16 A leader Ryan Johansen, 10 Jakub Voracek, 22 Pts leader Ryan Johansen, 16 Zac Rinaldo, 15 PIM leader Jared Boll, 28 5-1-2 Home/Road 2-5-1 11/8 vs. Colorado, W 4-3 Last Game 11/11 @ Washington, L 4-2 7-3-0 Last 10 1-8-1