NHL playoffs Flyers vs. Canadiens: Prospect for Matchup of 1st Round

08/10/2020 Sports


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In the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2020, everyone is looking forward to the Flyers.

For the first time since 2000, the Flyers will be the No. 1 seed of the Eastern Conference in the postseason after winning the round robin of the NHL’s 24-team tournament.

They supported their climb Saturday night with a 4-1 victory over the Lightning at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto’s Eastern Conference home.

Nicolas Aube-Kubel had a great game with two goals, while Joel Farabee and Tyler Pitlick also told goalkeepers.

After going 3-0-0 through the round robin, the top-seeded Flyers will face the 12-seeded Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs.

Back in 2000, the year of the Flyers’ five-hour playoff classic with the Penguins, the team lost the Eastern Conference Final to the eventual champion Devils in seven games.

Twenty years later it is again the no. 1 seed.

“We’re up here,” Farabee said in a video interview. “We are ready to dance.”

• Just how impressive were the Flyers in the round robin? They swept the Bruins, Capitals and Lightning by a combined score of 11-3.

Nice darn a good mood for the Flyers when the real deal starts new week. They’ve always been a confident team, especially since January, but this was a yardstick round-robin tour and they turned heads.

The Capitals and Bruins end the round robin Sunday (noon ET).

1. Flyers – 3-0-0, six points
2. Lightning – 2-1-0, four points
3. Capitals – 0-1-1, one point
4. Bruins – 0-2-0, zero points

• NBC Sports analyst Keith Jones mentioned in intermission how the Flyers get in waves with their opponents. Their depth was excellent due to the round robin and will probably be their biggest difference in a playoff run.

In the round robin Claude Giroux went scoreless, James van Riemsdyk went scoreless in two games, Jakub Voracek had an assist in two games, Sean Couturier had a few assists, Travis Konecny ​​(two assists) did not have to score a goal, Kevin Hayes (four assists) did not score, and the Flyers convincingly earned the no. 1-sied.

• Carter Hart, who turns 22 next Thursday, looks set for the first round.

The Bruins had an NHL-most 100 points in the regular season. The Lightning scored an NHL-best 3.47 goals per game. Hart totals 57 saves on 59 shots in matchups with those clubs.

• In 2018-19, Aube-Kubel got his first taste of the NHL … barely. Called by AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley, Aube-Kubel went scoreless in a stunt of nine games with the big club, playing only 5:35 minutes a night.

“It’s very difficult, especially when you spend about 15 minutes without playing, 10 minutes without playing, so it’s really hard for the legs,” Aube-Kubel said in February about the limited minutes last season. “When you’re there, you’re just so stressed out not to make a mistake that you do not really show anything.

“Last year I didn’t really get a good chance to show what I could do. I’m happy this year… even in my first game I was put in a good situation with good players and it worked out for me. ”

In 2019-20, the Flyers finally called up Aube-Kubel in mid-December. The new coaching staff has done a solid job of giving him a chance but also keeping him constantly motivated. It resulted in a hungry, hard-working, forward-controlling winger who gave the Flyers a monstrous boost against the Lightning with the club’s first two goals.

In a game against the laden Lightning, the 24-year-old Aube-Kubel was one of the best players on the ice. In training camp last month, he mentioned how his style of playing fits in with the playoffs. It certainly looked Saturday. The Flyers would love that kind of effort and shock throughout the playoffs.

• It looks like the Flyers have avoided what would have been a costly injury right before the first round.

Travis Sanheim left the game 22 seconds into the second period after taking a hit from Blake Coleman. It looked like Sanheim was moving his wrist or arm to the control as he walked up the tunnel.

Fortunately for the Flyers, Sanheim returned later in the period.

• An injury scare thus makes a memory of the Flyers boy, promising stallion of blueliners. Playing his first round-robin game, Shayne Gostisbehere reminded everyone of his game.

As Gostisbehere is the Flyers’ seventh defender, he has done everything to potentially shake up the status quo. Gostisbehere, who should have undergone arthroscopic surgery on both knees by 2020, had a good camp and said he felt “10 times better” compared to in the regular season.

Against Tampa Bay, he looked like his mobile, confident, things make-happen from the blue line, recording two assists and a plus-2 rating. Gostisbehere made a sharp play to help score Aube-Kubel’s first goal and showed his vision to help Farabee’s goal, which was a big one as it extended the Flyers’ lead to 3-1 in the middle frame.

“That was a hard pass from Ghost, it takes a special skill set to be able to do that once,” Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said postgame in a video interview. “Great game by Ghost, but also great shot by Joel.”

The 27-year-old offensive-defensive defender also showed good instincts defensively.

An achievement like that will make Vigneault think, that’s for sure. The sixth and final place on defense will come down to Robert Hagg and Gostisbehere. Hagg probably has the light edge ahead, but Gostisbehere has pulled a lot closer and should be called up if the Flyers do not have a positive start to the first round.

• With Voracek out (undisclosed issue) Farabee jumped to the first line. Seeing him open the tournament fight for a spot in the lineup and probably the bottom six, this was a golden opportunity for the 20-year-old rookie winger.

He took advantage of that pretty well, scoring a goal and scoring an assist. His game lets him scale the lineup, but he’s really out when he’s with talented players. Good things from him and he pushed for a bigger role, especially depending on the status of Voracek and Michael Raffl (undisclosed injury), who missed the last two games of the round robin.

“You look at our lineup, we have such great depth,” Farabee said postgame in a video interview. “Ghosty and I slip in. We have guys who slip out, come back. It just shows how good a team we are and how deep we are.”

• The power play never really got through in the round robin, as the Flyers finished 0 for 11 through the three games. That would have to be better about a course of a best-of-seven series.

• The Flyers caught some breaks in the round robin, but give their credit for taking advantage of those breaks.

They did not beat the finalist Tuukka Rask of Vezina Trophy in the 4-1 victory over the Bruins. They did not see James Norris Memorial Trophy finalist John Carlson in the 3-1 victory over the Capitals.

Against the Lightning, they prevent Steven Stamkos (lower body injury), who had 66 points in 57 games in the regular season. In the first period, Tampa Bay also lost stud defender Victor Hedman (undisclosed injury), who is also a finalist for the Norris Trophy.

However, those games were not necessarily close – the Flyers did damage against three of the best clubs in the NHL.

• As the No. 1 seed in the first round, the Flyers face off against the 12th-seeded Canadiens, who beat the fifth-seeded Penguins in the best-of-five qualifying round, and take the series 3-1.

The Flyers went 2-1-0 against Montreal in the regular season, with a 3-2 overtime win Nov. 7, a 4-3 victory Nov. 30 and a 4-1 loss Jan. 16.

The first round of the playoffs is scheduled to begin next Tuesday. The schedule of the Flyers is determinable.

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