For a while it looked like Philadelphia had found something. After the 9-game skid ended they won 3 straight, including a 3-2 win over Colorado and a 3-1 win in Buffalo. As of Thursday they've lost 3 straight: 5-4 to Anaheim, which snapped the Ducks' own 5-game skid, 4-3 to Columbus and 5-2 in Washington. The good news is that the offense is scoring more than it did in the 0-6-3 stretch. The bad news is that the defense started giving up goals right as the forwards started finding them.
Utah's weak spot is the back end. John Marino is out and Maveric Lamoureux is on IR, so the Mammoth are 2 regular defensemen short, and it has shown up late in games. Seattle scored 5 on them, and Pittsburgh needed only one 3rd period to wipe out a 2-goal lead. Up front it's a different story. Logan Cooley scored in Pittsburgh, and the younger players are starting to back up the stockpile of picks the organization collected. Utah has also lost Michael Carcone to IR with an upper-body injury, which thins out the bottom of the lineup.
The matchup looks simple on paper: Utah's forward depth against a Philadelphia lineup missing its best right wings. The Flyers' path is to keep it low-scoring and close, the kind of ugly win their own room has said the first one would have to be. Utah has been giving up 3rd-period pushes all month, so a Flyers team that hangs around can make it interesting. Puck drop is 4:00 PM ET. Both clubs' next game is this one, so this is what Philadelphia gets to work with: a full rest window and a home crowd that's running out of patience.