Carolina Hurricanes vs. Philadelphia Flyers: Lineups and Game Discussion

The Carolina Hurricanes will take to home ice tonight coming off their first-ever three-game road trip sweep, and riding a four-game winning streak overall. They will do so against a Philadelphia Flyers team that handed them a loss earlier this month in Philly, but is also currently skidding as they grapple with a four-game losing streak.

The Canes will look to continue receiving solid play from their secondary pieces similar to the solid play from Nino Niederreiter (1 goal, 1 assist) and Lucas Wallmark (2 assists) on Tuesday in Chicago. With the absence of Erik Haula, presumably for a decent length of time, consistent contributions from those previously quiet Canes forwards will be required, while also receiving the expected efforts from the usual sources in Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, and Dougie Hamilton.

Rod Brind’Amour will return Petr Mrazek to the net at home on Thursday, and he will ice the following lineup in front of the Czech netminder:

Ryan Dzingel - Jordan Staal - Warren Foegele
Andrei Svechnikov - Sebastian Aho - Teuvo Teravainen
Nino Niederreiter - Lucas Wallmark - Martin Necas
Brock McGinn - Eetu Luostarinen - Jordan Martinook

Jaccob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton
Joel Edmundson - Brett Pesce
Jake Gardiner - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Petr Mrazek
James Reimer

Injuries and Scratches: Haydn Fleury (healthy), Erik Haula (knee)

The Flyers have fallen a tick behind the early Metropolitan top-three race in their recent four-game losing streak. Sitting at 24 points, the Flyers hope that their young starting metminder, Carter Hart can eventually break out of his early season struggles. Sitting at just an .896 save percentage, Hart has been less reliable this season than in his breakout performance in the second half of last season.

For tonight, however, the Flyers will turn to the veteran, Brian Elliott between the pipes. The 34-year-old has been solid in his 11 games thus far this season, which combined with Hart’s struggles have led to more action than expected for the projected backup.

The Flyers did receive some good news on the injury front today, even if it doesn’t necessarily help them this evening. Center Scott Laughton is slated to return from a broken finger as they Flyers make their way back home for the weekend.

With Laughton still unavailable tonight, here is the lineup that is expected from coach Alain Vigneault:

Claude Giroux - Morgan Frost - Travis Konecny
James van Riemsdyk - Kevin Hayes - Jakub Voracek
Oskar Lindblom - Sean Couturier - Joel Farabee
Andy Andreoff - Michael Raffl - Tyler Pitlick

Ivan Provorov - Matt Niskanen
Shayne Gostisbehere - Justin Braun
Travis Sanheim - Philippe Myers

Brian Elliott
Carter Hart