With the regular season winding down, the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings are heading in opposite directions.<\/p>\n
The Flyers look to continue their hot stretch Thursday when they visit the Red Wings, who are scuffling to the finish line.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia (40-26-12, 92 points) has won nine of its last 12 games, helping the team rise into third place in the Metropolitan Division. The Flyers have won three straight \u2013 matching a season high accomplished six times \u2013 and they enter Thursday\u2019s matchup as one of the hottest teams in the NHL.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been great,\u201d Flyers winger Owen Tippett said. \u201cObviously, we believed all year that we could be in this position, and the job\u2019s not done yet. We\u2019ve got to continue going. Like I said, we\u2019re having a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Wings (40-29-9, 89 points) are on the other end of the roller coaster, having dropped seven of their last nine games. They also have lost five consecutive home contests (0-4-1), leaving them needing a late-season push to sneak into a wild-card spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the situation we\u2019re in and, obviously, points are at a premium,\u201d Detroit defenseman Justin Faulk said.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia is coming off a 5-1 victory at the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. Trevor Zegras had two goals and an assist, Tyson Foerster also scored twice and the Flyers\u2019 defense allowed one goal for the third straight game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like for almost a month now, we\u2019ve been playing must-win games, so I\u2019m definitely getting more comfortable and definitely settling in a little bit for sure,\u201d Zegras said. \u201cPersonally for me, I haven\u2019t played any games other than this season of this magnitude, and I think a lot of the other guys would say the same, so it\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zegras, who was acquired in a trade with the Anaheim Ducks last summer, leads the Flyers in assists (40) and ranks second in points (65). He has never appeared in the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight from the beginning when Trevor came to us, he wanted to play meaningful games,\u201d Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI think he wants to prove a lot of people wrong. He played with a chip on his shoulder this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detroit dropped its third straight game Tuesday, absorbing a 4-3 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. John Gibson allowed a goal with 17 seconds left in regulation and then three more tallies in the shootout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a disappointing finish to that game,\u201d said Red Wings center Dylan Larkin, who had a goal and an assist. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to find something. I hope that\u2019s not the one, and I hope the (recent loss to the Minnesota Wild) isn\u2019t the one that\u2019s the final nail in the coffin. I hope we get some help and we have something to play for to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Due to a scheduling quirk, Thursday marks the third matchup between the Flyers and Red Wings in the last two weeks after the teams did not meet in the first 5 \u00bd months of the season.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia topped Detroit 5-3 on March 28 behind Tippett\u2019s hat trick before the Red Wings exacted some revenge April 2 as Alex DeBrincat scored twice in a 4-2 triumph.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still points on the table,\u201d Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. \u201cWe have to come back, have a good practice (Wednesday) and get ready to play Philly. We\u2019re in must-win territory now, so we\u2019re still there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the regular season winding down, the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings are heading in opposite directions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205],"class_list":{"0":"post-548273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116371761283352400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}