Flyers vs Islanders Preseason Preview
“Thursday’s lineup will be a dress rehearsal for opening night.” The quote from John Tortorella after Monday’s 3-1 win over the Boston Bruins.
While originally this was slated to be a dress rehearsal for the regular season opener, Tortorella may have changed his mind slightly. He stated in his press conference this morning, while it may seem like this is the opening night lineup, do not be so sure as they themselves have not yet decided on the final lineup for Thursday’s opener.
Well Thursday is here and here is what your Flyers lineup will look like for tonight and what could be a close look at the lineup for next Thursday when the Flyers open their season against the Blue Jackets in Columbus.
Forwards:
Farabee-Couturier-Foerster
Laughton-Cates-Konecny
Tippett-Frost-Atkinson
Deslauriers-Poehling-Hathaway
Defense:
York-Ristolainen
Staal-Sanheim
Walker-Seeler
Goalies:
Hart
Ersson
Tortorella announced yesterday that Carter Hart will get the full game in between the pipes as the battle for the backup role has been decided. Sam Ersson has won the job and that will be the 1-2 combo for the Flyers as they head into the season.
On the defense, they might be getting a final look at some of the veterans as Sean Walker, Nick Seeler, and Marc Staal will all be in the lineup. Zamula and Emil Andrae are in a tough battle to see which one of them makes the opening night roster as well. But, with all three of those veteran guys in the lineup, it very well could mean one of them gets cut. The odd man out would most likely be Sean Walker as Torts loves Seeler as you could tell from last season and Marc Staal has basically already been penciled into that 6th/7th defenseman role.
Up front there are no real surprises as with this being close to what the opening night lineup will look like. Obviously, Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink are the two guys who had probably the closest battle all of training camp. It appears that Foerster has the slight edge over Brink which is a little surprising with how well Brink played in the last few preseason games. However, I’m sure some of the deciding factor was what Foerster did last season. Who knows though as, after tonight the Flyers have until Monday to finalize their roster so both of these guys very well could make the team.
The Islanders come into this game 2-2 on the preseason so far having already beaten the Flyers 2-1 in their last meeting. Both teams will have much different lineups tonight than they did the last meeting. For the Flyers this is a chance to get going in the right direction and to work out any remaining rust they might have as the regular season begins next Thursday in Columbus.
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-Walsh