Flyers at Blues preview: Will a lack of Hart hurt Philadelphia?

This is certainly less than ideal for the Philadelphia Flyers. Their starting goaltender, Carter Hart, tweaked something during practice and did not travel to St. Louis with the team. This means that Brian Elliott will be starting in net tonight, and AHL goaltender Alex Lyon will be on the bench as Elliott’s backup.

This is less than ideal for the Flyers, who sit in the Eastern Conference’s last wild card spot. The Metro is the hardest division in hockey this season and any ground lost probably won’t be regained. Hart’s 15-11-3 with a 2.61 GAA, while Elliott’s having a down season with a 9-5-3 record and a .896 save percentage and a 3.16 GAA. The Flyers allow a lot of goals but still have a +4 goal differential, so this might be a case of a high powered offense picking up some slack for their rear end.

The Flyers are 4-5-1 in their last ten games and are 9-13-2 on the road. This is less than ideal for them (and more than ideal for the Blues), because a win tonight sets a new 10 game home win streak record for St. Louis. They’re a league best 17-4-3 at home this season and are riding a four game winning streak. They’ve never swept a five game homestand, but the odds are good for that to happen tonight.

Former Blues head coach Mike Yeo is returning tonight as an assistant coach for the Flyers. This will be his first trip back to St. Louis since he was fired last November.

Last season, the Blues took both games from the Flyers and outscored them 10-3; as much as it sucks to see Elliott get lit up in a game, watching it come at the hands of the Blues mitigates that a little bit, I think.

As for the line-up, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The only change for tonight’s NBCSN game will be that Jordan Binnington is back between the pipes.