At first blush, one might look at a match-up with this year’s Dallas Stars and their highlighter sweaters and salivate a little. Coming into tonight, they hadn’t won a game in regulation and have not scored at rates befitting a team that was in the Bubble Cup just a year and a half ago.
The Flyers, meanwhile, were coming off a hard-fought win over the best team in the NHL and were returning their top defensemen and second-line center from injury. But sometimes, you just run into a team that’s due, or a team that’s incredibly desperate for a win to help try and get their season back on track, or you’re on the second night of a back-to-back having traveled some 1,200 miles in a day playing a team with two days rest.