Flyers gunning for 7th straight win vs. slumping Hurricanes (Feb 28, 2018)
The Philadelphia Flyers will go for their seventh straight win when they host the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night.
Slumping Carolina (27-25-11) will be trying to avoid its seventh straight loss.
The Flyers (34-19-10) can leapfrog back ahead of the Metropolitan Division-leading Washington Capitals with a win. Philadelphia is 10-0-2 in its past 12 games and has not lost in regulation since Feb. 1 and is 26-8-3 since December 4.
"Chemistry is a big part of this game, and I think that's been a major factor in our group being able to dig out of a real big hole a couple of months back and be able to continue battling together," Flyers coach Dave Hakstol told NHL.com
"We've got an awful tough schedule coming up going down the final stretch here, so we're going to be tested at a lot of different levels, but we've got to keep growing during that time period."
Philadelphia's latest win was a 1-0 shootout victory Monday in Montreal as Sean Couturier scored the deciding goal in the shootout.
Petr Mrazek made 28 saves and allowed only one goal in the shootout in picking up the shutout. Mrazek is 3-0-0 with a 1.30 goals-against average and .947 save percentage since being acquired by the Flyers in a trade from the Detroit Red Wings on Feb. 19.
"Well I don't know if I can rank it, but he was outstanding," Hakstol told NHL.com of Mrazek's Monday effort. "He did a great job in the middle portion of the game for us, and obviously, in the shootout he was excellent."
Carolina jumped out to 3-1 first-period lead at Boston on Tuesday night, but ultimately lost 4-3 to the Bruins on Charlie McAvoy's goal at 1:08 of overtime.
Brock McGinn, Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho scored for the Hurricanes (0-4-2 in their last six), and Scott Darling made 28 saves.
"We're sitting here and got one point. That's not good enough. We know we need two right now," Carolina's Justin Faulk told NHL.com. "We need to string together some wins."
Carolina trails the Columbus Blue Jackets by four points for the Eastern Conference's second wild card.
Both teams scored late in the first period, with Boston's Riley Nash scoring against his former team in the final seconds of the period.
"It didn't help," coach Bill Peters told NHL.com of the Bruins' late tally. "We got one in the last minute, and they got one in the last minute. It would have been nice to come into the room with a two-goal lead, but it's not the way it unfolded."
On the plus side, a team that had managed six goals in their previous five games found the back of the net three times against the Bruins.
"It's feast or famine with this group, and tonight it was going in for whatever reason," Peters said.
Carolina is likely to be without co-captain Jordan Staal, who is away from the team after the death of his infant daughter.
The Flyers won the teams' last meeting, March 6, on Jordan Weal's overtime goal.
Mrazek is 6-1 with a 1.71 goals-against average and .951 save percentage against the Hurricanes.
Darling is 0-2-0 with a 3.09 GAA and .898 save percentage against the Flyers, while Cam Ward's numbers are 11-11-6, 2.72, .903.
