Columbus Blue Jackets Visit Philadelphia Gritties… Flyers

The Columbus Blue Jackets visit the City of Brotherly Love on Thursday.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are traveling to Philadelphia to take on Stinger’s arch rival Gritty and the Flyers tonight. The Flyers are off to a rough start which resulted in the firing of former general manager Ron Hextall, who has since been replaced by former Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher.

Despite the Flyers slow start, they have a strong team on paper which shouldn’t be taken lightly. Led by captain Claude Giroux who currently has 30 points in the first 25 games of the season. The Columbus Blue Jackets counter with Cam Atkinson who has 30 in 26 games.

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Another key player for the Flyers is former Blue Jacket Jakub Voracek who’s off to a disappointing start by his standard, with only 20 points through 25 games.

As a whole, the Flyers are currently second last in the East, ahead of only the New Jersey Devils. It comes as a surprise considering their talent at forward and on defense, however their goaltending remains the biggest issue as it has for quite a while. With starting goaltender Brian Elliott injured at the moment, the Flyers are rolling with a tandem of Michal Neuvirth and Anthony Stolarz which hasn’t worked for them to this point.

Luckily for Flyers fans, Carter Hart is getting close to being ready for the NHL and is currently splitting time in the AHL with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

Lineup Projections (From DailyFaceoff.com)

Columbus:

Panarin – Dubois – Atkinson

Foligno – Jenner – Anderson

Dubinsky – Wennberg – Bjorkstrand

Hannikainen – Nash – Sedlak

Werenski – Jones

Murray – Nutivaara

Harrington – Savard

Bobrovsky

Korpisalo

Philadelphia:

Claude Giroux – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny

James van Reimsdyk – Nolan Patrick – Wayne Simmonds

Michael Raffl – Scott Laughton – Jakub Voracek

Oskar Lindblom – Jori Lehtera – Dale Weise

Ivan Provorov – Shayne Gostisbehere

Robert Hagg – Andrew MacDonald

Travis Sanheim – Radko Gudas

Anthony Stolarz

Michal Neuvirth

The Blue Jackets face a test against the divisional rival Flyers despite their location in the standings. With Dave Hakstol fighting for his job as coach of the Flyers, they’ll be sure to put up a fight.