Penguins at Flyers 1/13/21 - NHL Picks & Predictions

The Pittsburgh Penguins open the 2021 NHL regular season with a visit to the Philadelphia Flyers. Last season Pittsburgh finished third in the Metropolitan Division and fifth in the Eastern Conference at 40-23-6 on 86 points. The leading scorers were Evgeni Malkin with 74 points and Brayan Rust with 27 goals. It appeared for most of the season the Penguins were a contender for the Stanley Cup as the defense improved and goaltending was above average.

However, late in the season, the defense played poorly and the goaltending followed suit, while Jake Guentzel was lost to an injury and the Penguins won just three of their final 11 games. During the off-season Pittsburgh picked up Kasperi Kapanen, Mike Masteson, Cody Ceci and Mark Jankowski, while losing Matt Murray, Patric Hornqvist, Jack Johnson and Dominik Simon. However mainstays such as Crosby, Malkin and Rust return and Tristan Jarry will be the new netminder.

The Philadelphia Flyers were 41-27-7 on 89 points in 2019-20 finishing second in the Metropolitan Division and fourth in the Eastern Conference. The leading scorer last season was Travis Konecny with team highs in goals at 24 and points with 61. Philadelphia reached the second round of the NHL playoffs after the restart, but were defeated by the New York Islanders. During the off-season the Flyers added Erik Gustafsson and Derrick Pouliot, while losing Chris Stewart, Matt Niskanen, Tyler Pitlick, Nate Thompson, and Derek Grant.

Carter Hart returns as the starting netminder for the Flyers after posting a .920 even strength save percentage last season as a 21-year old in his first full year in the NHL. Kevin Hayes, Sean Couturier, Ivan Provorov and Konecny all return to give the Flyers an excellent squad both on offense and defense. The Flyers hope to see Improvement from Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux, who both suffered below-par seasons last year on offense.