The game: 7:00 p.m., NBCSP, ESPN+, 97.5 The Fanatic

We’re back, people! We hope you all enjoyed this little break after a pretty hectic period – we certainly did – but now we’re starting to get a little nervous and very ready for the Flyers’ return to action.

The Flyers themselves are certainly looking forward to getting back into action too, because as necessary as the breather may have been, it came at a time when they were getting hot and building some good momentum. As it stands, they are on a three-game winning streak and are looking to not only extend that tonight, but also move past the Rangers and secure fourth place in the Metro standings. Right now they’re in a playoff spot, but only just – they’re in the second wild card spot, just one point ahead of the Lightning behind them. So they’ve made up a lot of ground in the standings, but given how tight things are right now, their position isn’t exactly comfortable.

Another win would go a long way for them, but it’s not an easy matchup they’re looking at. Tonight the Florida Panthers are in town looking to keep the ball rolling this season after picking up their first win of the three-game series with a shootout win at Sunrise early last month.

But the Panthers have hit a rough patch since we last saw them, having lost their last game (inexplicably) in overtime to the Penguins and winning just four of their last ten games. They also want to be without their starting goalkeeper for a while longer as Sergei Bobrovsky is away from the team while he and his wife await the birth of their child.

Nevertheless, it shows how well they isolated themselves at the start of the season, because even though things have gone downhill for them recently, they still hold second place in the Atlantic, at a level just two points behind first place . This is the Panthers – this is a very good team, and even when they’re not doing well, they’re still doing well.

Storylines to watch

Sam Ersson’s impending return

Things appear to be in full swing for Ersson, with signs pointing to a return soon – he has returned to training and Helge Grans was sent home earlier in the week to make room for him in the squad. It looks like he’s close to getting started, but we’ll have to wait a little longer before we see him in action again.

Ivan Fedotov gets the nod to start tonight, and in some ways that’s not surprising. Fedotov has been playing pretty well lately, and he certainly deserves another start. And that also allows them to be even more patient with Ersson’s recovery – there are no signs of him suffering a setback (he was present for the morning skate, after all), but given that his injury represents a renewed improvement for the same, what bothered him at the start of the season, exercising a bit more caution seems like the right course of action.

-a power play goal… please

If the Flyers really want to get off to a good start in this duel, they need some help from their power play. And although both units have shown brilliant performances for much of the season, they still lack consistency. It’s been four games since the Flyers scored on the power play – their last goal came before Thanksgiving against the Blackhawks. They’ve also dropped to a conversion rate of 16 percent, putting them all the way down to eighth in the league standings in power play percentage. They have enough talent to make an impact and we’ve seen them create enough chances to prove it, but times are getting a little more desperate and they need to step up and find a way to take some of their chances gamble away before it gets to them.

Stay disciplined

On the other hand, it will be particularly important for the Flyers not to shoot themselves in the foot and put themselves at a disadvantage in this matchup – that is, they will have to find a way to stay disciplined.

And that was an uphill battle for them for most of the season. They struggled to find the line without crossing it and seemed particularly prone to the unnecessary ticky-tacky stick violations and that was a real obstacle for them. And they’ve struggled to make progress in containing those gaffes either – Friday against the Rangers was the first game of the season where there were no minor penalties, but then they fell behind on Saturday in St. Louis and were left with none Goal conceded In the first period, however, he received an interference penalty in the first minute of the second and then two more penalties in the third.

Now, this obviously won’t sink them completely, but giving away opportunities for nothing will catch up with them eventually.

The lineups

Philadelphia Flyers

Joel Farabee – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett – Morgan Frost – Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Scott Laughton – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway

Cam York-Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae – Rasmus Ristolainen
Nick Seeler – Egor Zamula

Ivan Fedotov
(Sam Ersson)

Florida Panthers

Evan Rodrigues – Aleksander Barkov – Sam Rienhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew TKachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
AJ Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich

Gustav Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Nate Schmidt
Dmitry Kulikov – Adam Boqvist

Spencer Knight
(Chris Driedger)