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Flyers Game Preview vs. Senators: Quest to Avoid Double-Digits
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- Flyers Game Preview vs. Senators: Quest to Avoid Double-Digits
Less than three weeks into the campaign, the Philadelphia Flyers (0-6-3) may be playing for their season, and getting their first win won't be an easy task having to host the red-hot Ottawa Senators (6-2-0) at the Xfinity Mobile Arena at 7 p.m. on Saturday night.
If they can't get it done, well, they'll be on the wrong side of NHL history with a 10-game losing streak to start the season.
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Of course, these two teams already played once this season, with the Senators escaping with a narrow 2-1 win over the Flyers last Thursday.
The Senators lost top winger William Eklund to a lower-body injury in that game, and it was recently announced that Eklund will be out for 10-12 weeks after undergoing ankle surgery.
So, Ottawa will be without one of their most talented players, but so will the Flyers, who incidentally lost Travis Konecny to an injury in last week's game as well, even though he toughed it out and played the full game.
In addition to Konecny, the Flyers are still without defensemen Rasmus Ristolainen and Cam York, pending an official status update from the Flyers and/or head coach Rick Tocchet.
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Assuming the Flyers make no further roster moves, they will face the Senators on Saturday with an unchanged lineup yet again.
Flyers lines vs. Senators
Trevor Zegras - Sean Couturier - Owen Tippett
Denver Barkey - Christian Dvorak - Tyson Foerster
Porter Martone - Noah Cates - Matvei Michkov
Michael Bunting - Jack Studnicka - Noel Acciari
Travis Sanheim - Oliver Bonk
Nick Seeler - Jamie Drysdale
Simon Benoit - David Jiricek
Dan Vladar (S), Joseph Woll
Senators lines for Flyers game
Stephen Halliday - Tim Stutzle - Drake Batherson
Andre Burakovsky - Dylan Cozens - Claude Giroux
Nick Cousins - Shane Pinto - Michael Amadio
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Warren Foegele - Ridly Greig - Fabian Zetterlund
Thomas Chabot - Artem Zub
Tyler Kleven - Carter Yakemchuk
Cameron Crotty - Jordan Spence
Linus Ullmark (S), Sam Ersson
Flyers special teams
Power play: 2-for-26, 7.7% (31st)
Penalty kill: 29-for-35, 82.9% (13th)
Senators special teams
Power play: 5-for-37, 13.5% (28th)
Penalty kill: 25-for-31, 80.6% (16th)
How to watch the Flyers game
Saturday night's Flyers game can be found on NBC Sports Philadelphia, TVAS-D, and Sportsnet 1.
Flyers player to watch
Jamie Drysdale has been unusually quiet this season, having not recorded a single point in his nine games played thus far. He's also second on the team in average ice time, getting 22:06 a night, even with David Jiricek overtaking him on the top power play unit.
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The Flyers have placed an emphasis on defensemen jumping up into the play in recent games, with Travis Sanheim and Oliver Bonk making impacts in that aspect in the game against Seattle on Tuesday night.
The 24-year-old Drysdale has just nine shots on goal in nine games this season, but scored a career-high eight goals on 101 shots in 78 games last year.
Like Sanheim and Bonk, the Flyers badly need Drysdale (and Jiricek) to begin getting involved, too, otherwise they will continue to be one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL.
