The Arizona Coyotes are looking for their first win of the road trip tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Game Preview
The Arizona Coyotes’ road troubles continued as they dropped their last two games. Unfortunately, things won’t get any easier tonight as they play the first game of a back-to-back.
Despite the losses, the Coyotes have done good things in their last game and on the road. They are taking fewer penalties and have been doing well on the power play. And perhaps biggest of all, they are scoring 5-on-5.
The Coyotes have five 5-on-5 goals in their last two games and have three goals in each of their two losses. The results aren’t what they would have hoped for, but unfortunately for the Desert Dogs, they are still making tons of mistakes. The Coyotes are far from a perfect team, and small mistakes can lead to big problems, as we saw against the Florida Panthers.
Per PHNX’s Craig Morgan, Karel Vejmelka will get the start tonight, with Connor Ingram set to go for tomorrow against the Blackhawks. Vejmelka has been great for the Coyotes this season, hopefully continuing tonight.
Tonight’s opponent will be another seventh-ranked team, the Philadelphia Flyers. But the Flyers are riding a three-game win streak into tonight’s game, so don’t expect them to be pushovers.
The Flyers are not a great team, but they are better defensively than the Coyotes. They allow fewer goals than the Yotes and have a better penalty kill.
In their last three games, the Flyers have only allowed six goals. The most they gave up was three against the San Jose Sharks.
And despite not being a high-offense team, the Flyers have been scoring goals during that time. They have scored four goals in all three of their wins, a sharp increase from their season average. The Flyers have averaged 2.68 goals per game this season, so the Coyotes may be catching them at the worst possible time.
Players to Watch
Arizona: Clayton Keller – Keller had a goal and an assist in the Coyotes’ last game as he continues to have a dominant season. With Tuesday’s performance, he has 14 goals and 22 assists.
Philadelphia: Travis Konecny – Like many players this year, Konecny is having a career season. He already has 19 goals and comes into tonight’s game riding a six-game point streak which has seen him register six goals and four assists and have two points in all but one game.
Injuries
Arizona: Matias Maccelli (lower body), Liam O’Brien (upper body), Bryan Little (ear), Andrew Ladd (knee)
Philadelphia: Carter Hart (concussion), Tanner Laczynski (lower body), Cam Atkinson (neck), Sean Couturier (back), Ryan Ellis (pelvis)
Puck Drop
Tonight’s game will be at 5:00 pm Arizona time and will air on Bally Sports Arizona and ESPN 620AM.