Flyers at Kings
The Philadelphia Flyers finished the 2015-16 regular season with a flourish and head into Friday's season opener against the host Los Angeles Kings, who began this campaign with the disastrous loss to injury of franchise goaltender Jonathan Quick. The former Conn Smythe Trophy winner and two-time Olympian was placed on injured reserve on Thursday, one day removed from exiting the Kings' season-opening 2-1 setback to San Jose with an unspecified lower-body injury.
"Jonathan is obviously a special player," Los Angeles coach Darryl Sutter of the 30-year-old Quick, who had a franchise-best 40 wins last season en route to being named a Vezina Trophy finalist. "You just don't replace that. It's not different than any other star player. You just don't replace or expect somebody to play the same way and do the same things." Jeff Zatkoff, who began his second stint with the Kings by stopping 15 of 16 shots versus San Jose, will draw the start in his third career appearance versus Philadelphia. Calder Trophy nominee Shayne Gostisbehere and fellow promising young defenseman Ivan Provorov have the Flyers' faithful wondering if the future will fast-track to the present in Dave Hakstol's second year behind the bench. Should Philadelphia fail to improve upon last season's 22nd-ranked offense (2.57 goals per game), consecutive postseason appearances likely won't be in the cards.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, CSN Philadelphia, FSN West (Los Angeles)
ABOUT THE FLYERS (2015-16: 41-27-14, 5th in Metropolitan): Philadelphia has been in search for a No. 1 goaltender arguably since its current general manager (Ron Hextall) was between the pipes, but Steve Mason and Michal Neuvirth each performed at high levels at various times last season. Wayne Simmonds enjoyed a career-best 32-goal season on the top line and combined with captain Claude Giroux and Brayden Schenn to score 80 of the team's 211 goals (37.9 percent). Fellow forward Jakub Voracek struggled to get it together and finished with 55 points - 26 fewer than the previous season. "Only year that I had a good start was two years ago and I ended up with 81 points," Voracek said. "... I don't know point-wise how it's going to start, but I know if I play good, I'm a game-changer."
ABOUT THE KINGS (0-1-0): Tyler Toffoli recorded a team-leading 31 goals last season and picked up where he left off 82 seconds into Wednesday's tilt with a power-play tally. Norris Trophy winner Drew Doughty notched an assist on the play, but his team-high four giveaways and his hesitation on a failed block led to the game-winning tally for the Sharks. Despite the loss, Doughty implored his teammates to step up and showed confidence in Zatkoff. "I know how good of a goalie 'Zats' is and I know he can do the job," he said. "We've won without (Quick) in the lineup before and it (stinks) that he's gone, but I think we can do it again.”
OVERTIME
1. Philadelphia is looking for secondary scoring from F Dale Weise, who had a career-best 14 goals with Montreal last season.
2. Los Angeles reached out to Ontario and recalled G Peter Budaj, who led the American Hockey League with 42 wins and nine shutouts last season.
3. Flyers D Radko Gudas will serve the first contest of his six-game suspension for interference against Boston F Austin Czarnik while Kings LW Tanner Pearson will sit out the final tilt of a two-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of Edmonton D Brandon Davidson.