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Saturday afternoon, the New Jersey Devils look to snap out of their mini-funk by defeating the Philadelphia Flyers. The Devils lost their most recent outing on Thursday, falling to the Toronto Maple Leafs on the road.
The Devils are currently 26-15-6, which currently has them second in the Metropolitan division. The Flyers hold a record of 20-20-6, which has them fifth in the Metropolitan.
Match Overview
The Devils are in a weird spot where they are on a five game point streak, but have only won two of those five games. While seven points in five games isn’t the worst outcome, I’m sure everyone in that locker room wants to be better. The Flyers are currently on a 3-0-1 run of play, but that comes after a stretch where the team went 2-6-0.
The Flyers are running a fairly healthy squad, with the only notable pieces missing being a pair of fourth liners in Nicolas Deslauriers and Ryan Poehling. The Devils are still playing without Erik Haula who was retroactively placed on injured reserve yesterday.
Last season, the Devils split the season series with the Flyers, going 2-1-1. They, of course, secured the most notable win of the bunch outdoors during the Stadium Series.
Lines and Pairings
Devils
Forwards
Palat-Hughes-Bratt
Meier-Hischier-Noesen
Cotter-Dowling-Mercer
Tatar-Lazar-Bastian
Defense
Dillon-Hamilton
Hughes-Pesce
Siegenthaler-Kovacevic
Goalies
Markstrom
Allen
Flyers
Forwards
Foerster-Cates-Brink
Tippett-Frost-Konecny
Farabee-Couturier-Michkov
Laughton-Poehling-Hathaway
Defense
York-Sanheim
Zamula-Ristolainen
Seeler-Drysdale
Goalies
Ersson
Fedotov
Keys to the Game
Jack on Fire
While the Devils overall have been pretty cold on offense, that has not been the case for Jack Hughes. On the Devils five game points streak he has eight points, capped off by a three-point outing against the Leafs on Thursday. Hughes is now up to 55 points on the season in just 47 games, good enough for eighth in the NHL and 13th in points per game.
The Underrated Travis Konecny
Right behind the aforementioned Jack Hughes in the NHL’s points per game rankings for this season is Travis Konecny. Over his last three seasons, Konecny has been a sneaky good player for the Flyers.
The 2015 NHL Draft pick has 182 points in 182 games over the past three seasons, scoring 30 goals, or being on pace to score 30 goals, in each of them. He has easily been the Flyers most dangerous forward.
Where to Watch
Saturday’s matinee game is slated to begin at 12:30 pm ET. The game can be found on NHL Network.