Gameday 7 Preview: Flyers vs. Capitals

The Philadelphia Flyers will be on the hunt to snap a five-game losing streak as they travel down to Washington D.C. for their second of back-to-back games against the Capitals.

Eric Hartline-Imagn Images - Gameday 7 Preview: Flyers vs. Capitals

The Philadelphia Flyers will be on the hunt to snap a five-game losing streak as they travel down to Washington D.C. for their second of back-to-back games against the Capitals.

The Flyers have struggled in multiple areas, but there is no lack of belief within their locker room that they can bounce back from a stagnant offense and an ongoing quest to find which lines work best for this team.

Concern For The Powerplay

The powerplay was actually looking pretty good…until it wasn’t. The Capitals’ two shorthanded goals essentially erased the hope fans had gained after the Flyers recorded four PP goals in as many games on their West Coast road trip, and raised concerns for who should be on the man advantage.

Egor Zamula did not look sharp on the second powerplay unit against the Capitals, raising arguments that it would be worth switching him out with Cam York to see if York would have a better command over the quarterback position.

Gotta Get Goals

After only scoring one goal in their past couple of games, the Flyers know that they need to be generating more offense, and are confident that their puck luck will change.

Travis Sanheim, who scored the lone goal against Washington, put the team’s lack of goals down to “gripping the sticks too tight” and just having some bad puck luck, while goaltender Sam Ersson said that the locker room’s spirits haven’t dampened, and that there is still plenty of confidence that the offense can get back on track.

Tightening Up The Defense

The defense has already had to deal with some adversity, after Nick Seeler had to miss the first five games of the season due to numbness in his right leg.

This put Erik Johnson in a partnership with Jamie Drysdale—who was originally slated to be with Seeler—and Egor Zamula with Rasmus Ristolainen, which has proven to be a clunky and mistake-prone pairing.

Even the top pair of Sanheim and York have had their slip-ups, and the overall defensive quality has put some added pressure on the goaltending tandem of Ersson and Ivan Fedotov. Now that the defense is back to full strength, there’s hope that they can right their ship and look a bit stronger in front of the net to keep the goals against to a minimum.