Tonight, the Flyers will take on the Lightning at the St. Pete Times Forum.
This is noteworthy, because the last time the Flyers went to Tampa Bay -- on Nov. 9 -- this happened:
That was 48 days ago. Since then, much has transpired. The teams actually faced each other again, in Philly, with the Flyers winning 5-2...yet many questions prior to tonight’s contest dealt exclusively with the events of Nov. 9.
Hey Peter Laviolette, what will you do to beat Tampa’s 1-3-1?
“Whatever we need to do to be successful,” he told CSN Philadelphia. “We used a lot of quick ups in our building (a 5-2 Flyers win over the Lightning on Dec. 10) but that’s a different challenge than their building.
“We’ll see how the game presents and see how they play. I don’t really like talking about it in the [media] so they can read about what we’re going to do.”
Aside from the trap angle, there’s also the budding Claude Giroux vs. Steve Stamkos battle. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sam Carchidi dubbed it a matchup of “arguably the NHL’s top active players” -- which, statistically speaking, is a fair assessment. Giroux leads the NHL with 41 points while Stamkos is tied for second in goals, with 20.
PHT Notes: There will be one major difference between tonight’s game and the one on Nov. 9. The main orchestrator of Philly’s stall tactic, Chris Pronger, won’t be playing. That said, Braydon Coburn also proved equally adept at standing still and not moving the puck, so he could pick up the slack if need be.