Red Wings-Flyers preview and morning skate Tweets: Lyon starts, Kasper returns, Berggren sits

The 12-14-and-4 Red Wings host the 14-13-and-4 Philadelphia Flyers tonight (7 PM EST on TNT/97.1 FM) at Little Caesars Arena, with the Wings hoping to “gain some traction” after winning Saturday night against the Maple Leafs.

The Flyers have lost 5 of their last 7 games, last week’s 4-1 victory over Detroit excluded, and they lost their last game 4-1 to Minnesota on Saturday night.

Both the Flyers and Red Wings are preparing to embark upon 4-games-in-6-nights stretches (Detroit plays Philadelphia tonight, Montreal on Friday and Saturday, and St. Louis on Monday), and MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a quick preview of tonight’s game…

Alex Lyon returns after missing three weeks, also with a lower-body injury, but coach Derek Lalonde hadn’t decided immediately after practice Tuesday whether Lyon or Ville Husso will start.

The Red Wings will try to jump-start a stale power play that’s gone four games without converting (0 for 8) and is 1 for 14 over the past six games.

Lucas Raymond remains hot with 10 goals in his past 12 games.

Laughton has 12 goals in 11 career games against Detroit with the Flyers. Travis Konecny leads Philadelphia with 15 goals and 36 points. Matvei Michkov, the seventh overall pick in 2023, leads all rookies with 11 goals and 27 points.

As did Field Level Media…

The Flyers, like the Red Wings, haven’t played since Saturday. They’ve lost four of their last six, including a 4-1 decision to Minnesota on Saturday.

Samuel Ersson has started at goaltender for three of the last four games since returning from a lower-body injury.

“(Saturday) was a step forward in some areas where I’m trying to make some work on, but obviously when you get the loss there’s definitely other things that you want to keep working at,” Ersson said. “I’ll keep going here.”

A big topic of conversation after Monday’s practice revolved around the first line of Sean Couturier, Joel Farabee and Travis Konecny. While Konecny leads the team with 15 goals and 36 points, coach John Tortorella has been disappointed with their defensive play.

“I think they’ve been awful defensively,” he said. “They’ve been brutal. They make me dizzy, they spin so much in our end zone. They need to stop in our end zone. Once rush coverage is over, and we haven’t grabbed the puck, and we’re in the corner — it’s called arrivals. I always talk about arrivals; how you arrive on that rush coverage is key to coverage.

“It’s key to getting (the puck) back,” Tortorella added. “If you’re spinning all over the place, no one knows where you’re going to be. No one knows if you’re going to be the first man, the low man, or you’re going to be covering the point. That’s where your defense ends up playing in between. … But they’re smart enough people and they’re good enough players that they’ll rectify that.”

PhiladelphiaFlyers.com’s Bill Meltzer…

4. On the man advantage

The Flyers power play, while still not having recovered the form it showed over the first eight games of the 2024-25 season, has looked better of late after enduring a horrid stretch that lasted roughly six weeks.

Over the last two-plus weeks, however, the power play has started to show signs of life. In Minnesota this past Saturday, the power play went 0-for-3 but generated extensive attack zone time — by both power play units. The Flyers hit the post a couple of times including an Owen Tippett shot in the first period that went off the top of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s pads and then off the post.

For the season overall, the Flyers rank 26th in the NHL on the power play at 16.7 percent. Meanwhile, the Red Wings penalty kill has been horrid, especially over the last month. For the season, Detroit’s PK enters at 67.5 percent to rank 31st leaguewide.

On the flip side, the Red Wings generate a large portion of their scoring on the power play (24.4 percent success rate, ranked 8th). The Flyers penalty kill has not had much work over the last two games, but Laughton’s shorthanded goal against Detroit last Thursday proved to be the game winner. For the season, the Flyers PK ranks 14th in the league at 80.2 percent but has largely struggled since Thanksgiving.

5. Behind enemy lines: The Larkin line

Lucas Raymond, 22, leads the Red Wings in scoring this season with 31 points (12g, 19a) in 30 games played. He has three goals and four points over his last four games. Meanwhile, top-line center Dylan Larkin (12g, 12a) will try to break a nine-game goal drought on Wednesday but has four assists in his last four games. Detroit’s most important offensive catalyst had an unusually quiet game against the Flyers last Thursday (no points, minus-three, one shot on goal) but the speedy and gifted veteran is always a threat to break loose.

Beating Detroit starts with staying out of the penalty box and forcing the top line to spend more five-on-five time defending rather than attacking. The Flyers succeeded in those tasks last Thursday. They will try to replicate it in Detroit.

And Detroit Hockey Now’s Tim Robinson…

Detroit is currently six points out of a playoff spot, but only a point ahead of the last-place Canadiens in the Eastern Conference.

So, this week’s games are a chance for the Red Wings to both move up in the standings and a way to ensure they stay out of last.

Alex Lyon will be available tonight in goal, but his participation might be a game-time decision. Derek Lalonde wouldn’t divulge his thinking yesterday.

One way to get there  is to start getting more pucks on the net.

Sounds obvious, but the team has had trouble generating offense this season. Lately the defense has been finding the back of the net a little more often.

NHL.com also posted a profile of Konecny and Travis Sanheim as part of the lead-up to tonight’s TNT coverage, which will probably include an interview with one of the Red Wings or Flyers players during the pre-game show. And they posted this “blurb” about tonight’s game:

Philadelphia Flyers at Detroit Red Wings (7 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT)

Look out for Scott Laughton in this game. What kind of encore does the Flyers forward have in store after scoring all four goals in Philadelphia’s 4-1 win against the Red Wings at Wells Fargo Center on Dec. 12? It was the first four-goal game by a Flyers player since John LeClair got the hat trick plus one on Oct. 15, 2002. Two of the goals were empty-netters, but so what? Four goals in a game is special. The Flyers (14-13-4) then gave up four in a 4-1 loss to the Wild on Saturday, and they haven’t played since. The Red Wings (12-14-4) scored four in a 4-2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday to end an eight-game stretch without a regulation win, dating to Nov. 25. The Red Wings are 2-4-2 in their past eight games. The Flyers are 10-5-3 since Nov. 7 after going 4-8-1 in their first 13. Detroit forward Patrick Kane needs five points to become the second United States-born player to reach 1,300 for his NHL career.

Cue the NHL PR Tweet!

Here are tonight’s game notes:

gn-2024-12-18-0507-PHI@DETDownload

The Red Wings hit the ice at Little Caesars Arena for their morning skate just before 10:30 AM on Wednesday morning, but the beat writers didn’t really post anything with Alex Lyon’s start already known, and John Tortorella’s pre-morning-skate comments to come, so we received post-skate comments from coach Lalonde:

Meanwhile, on the Flyers’ side of things:

Today is also someone’s “special day” as Alex DeBrincat turns 27:

While we’re waiting, USA Hockey posted a picture of Trey Augustine at Team USA’s World Junior training camp at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth:

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!

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