St. Louis @ Philadelphia preview
Wells Fargo Center
Last Meeting ( Jan 15, 2020 ) Philadelphia 4, St. Louis 3
The Philadelphia Flyers will look to avoid a sixth consecutive loss when they host the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday.
The Flyers suffered a frustrating 4-3 overtime defeat Monday to the Carolina Hurricanes when Brett Pesce scored with 18 seconds left.
Philadelphia's game against the Blues will be the third of an eight-game homestand.
The struggling Flyers, who have endured separate 10-game and 13-game losing streaks this season, are hoping to halt another skid.
"We definitely didn't play a perfect game," Flyers interim head coach Mike Yeo said. "I do think we're getting more consistent in certain areas. When we do that, we're a tough team to play against."
The Flyers fell behind three times and equalized every time before falling late in overtime. It can be seen as an improvement over relinquishing late leads in recent losses to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals.
"We want to be aggressive," Yeo said. "We want to be an attacking team. But we don't want to be careless with the puck. It was another good learning experience for us."
Philadelphia's depleted roster did receive a lift with the return of Patrick Brown and Rasmus Ristolainen from injuries. The Flyers are still missing key injured players such as Sean Couturier, Ryan Ellis and Kevin Hayes; Couturier (back) was ruled out for the season.
"It felt good to get back on the ice and skate with the boys," said Brown, who scored one goal. "I thought we played well as a team. This was a tough one to swallow at the end."
The Blues will look to build on their positive momentum of a 6-3 road victory last Saturday over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Pavel Buchnevich scored two goals for the Blues, who played without injured Vladimir Tarasenko. He's listed as day-to-day and looks likely to play against the Flyers.
"Vladi was very good (Monday), and I do expect him in the lineup," Blues head coach Craig Berube said.
Even without Tarasenko, the Blues were clicking.
"We've been getting contributions all year from everybody and we've got to continue to do that," Berube said. "It was really nice that we got all four lines involved in the offense."
The Blues responded in a big way after a disappointing 3-2 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens. It was evident from the opening faceoff that St. Louis was going to come out with added energy.
"We did a good job of skating and forechecking well and when we did that, we got the puck and had some good looks," Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly said. "Scoring six goals is always good, especially against that team, who is very good, and only giving up three is good against them. It's always a tough challenge. We were disappointed with that effort (against the Canadiens). It wasn't a complete game. I thought we were more engaged and we were more physical at times."
Justin Faulk had one assist to extend his point streak to six games -- one goal and five assists.
--Field Level Media