The Philadelphia Flyers host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, and the first meeting of the season between the Metropolitan Division teams comes with both sides trying to settle into a rhythm. Puck drop is set for 7:00 p.m. EDT on NBCSP.
Philadelphia enters at 3-7-3 after letting a 2-0 and then a 3-2 lead slip away in a 5-4 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday afternoon. Columbus arrives at 4-5-0 after beating the Vegas Golden Knights 2-1 in overtime on Saturday at home, with Adam Fantilli scoring the winner on a 4-on-3 power play and Cam Talbot turning aside 26 of 27 shots.
The matchup lands at a useful moment for a Flyers team that has finally found some finishing touch on special teams. They have scored at least one power play goal in each of their last four games, and Porter Martone is part of that push. He turned 20 on Monday and has two goals and four points over his last four games, a small but real sign of progress for a team that has spent much of the opening month trying to find steady offense.
That progress has not erased the bigger numbers. The Flyers still rank 26th in the NHL with a 16.3 percent power play success rate, even after scoring on the man advantage in four straight games. Their power play was only 8.3 percent over the first eight games of the season, and the penalty kill has had its own uneven moments after allowing power play goals to Buffalo on Wednesday and to Anaheim on Saturday. Columbus has its own issues there, sitting at 30th with an 11.5 percent power play success rate.
There is also the matter of the schedule. This is the first of four meetings between the teams, and Columbus has played the fewest games in the NHL so far with nine, while Philadelphia has already played 13. The Flyers are also on a back-to-back, with a game in Washington on Wednesday, so the goaltending plan matters as much as the points on the line. Dan Vladar is expected to split the workload with Joseph Woll, and Vladar brings a 2-3-1 record, a 3.15 goals-against average and a.900 save percentage into the matchup after being held out of nearly all of the preseason by injury.
Tuesday night is less about the standings than the early shape of a season series that still has three chapters left. For Philadelphia, the test is whether the recent power-play spark and Martone’s surge can turn into something more durable before the schedule tightens again on Wednesday.
