Game Preview: Philadelphia Flyers @ Pittsburgh Penguins , Round 1 Game 5, 4/27/2026

Getting to know the Flyers

**Projected lines** ***FORWARDS*** Travis Konecny – Christian Dvorak – Porter Martone Denver Barkey – Trevor Zegras – Owen Tippett Alex Bump – Noah Cates – Tyson Foerster Luke Glendening – Sean Couturier – Garnet Hathaway ***DEFENSEMEN*** Travis Sanheim / Rasmus Ristolainen Cam York / Jamie Drysdale Nick Seeler / Noah Juulsen **Goalies:** Dan Vladar and Samuel Ersson **Potential scratches**: Matvei Michkov, Garrett Wilson, Carl Grundstrom, Emil Andrae, Helge Grans, David Jiricek, Oscar Eklind, Oliver Bonk, Hunter McDonald, Jacob Gaucher, Aleksei Kolosov, Carson Bjarnason **Injured Reserve**: Rodrigo Abols (fractured ankle), Nikita Grebenkin (upper body)

• It looks like there is going to be a lineup change among forwards for the Flyers for the first time in this series. Michkov is going out and Alex Bump is headed in to make his NHL playoff debut, based on a practice the Flyers held yesterday before traveling to Pittsburgh.
• Michkov hasn’t done much of anything (no points, four shots on goal and barely averaging above 10 minutes per game) but was Philadelphia’s fourth highest scorer with 51 points in the regular season. Removing him would take some skill out of their lineup, even though he hasn’t been able to get much of anything going as it was.
• There was another change in the middle lines with Barkey and Foerster trading spots. Barkey scored a goal in Game 4 on a nice setup from Zegras, it looks like the Flyers will be wanting to see them play together.
• Updated the scratch list for the Flyers, with their AHL affiliate didn’t qualify for the playoffs they have quite the taxi squad of young players sticking around.

And now for the Pens

• The Penguins did not have practice yesterday while traveling back home. That probably means there will be a well-attended gameday skate this morning for the club where we’ll see what, if any, changes happen from last game. Being as it was a win, the status quo sounds like the play at this point.
• We updated the Penguin scratch list as well, technically Murashov is up with the NHL roster right now to serve as an informal emergency third goalie. It’s expected he’ll be assigned back to the AHL by the time WBS’s series kicks off on Thursday against Hershey, assuming the NHL Penguins are still alive and kicking by that point.
• Crazy good stat about Letang being the first Penguin defenseman to register a playoff GWG in an elimination game since Darius Kasparaitis ‘sniped’ Dominik Hasek in the 2001 series against Buffalo. Wild last game was the first time since back then given all the playoff games played in the Crosby era, though from the hidden stat above there were ‘only’ 10 GWG’s when facing elimination prior to Letang’s goal on Saturday. **Multi-point monsters**

  

  Evgeni Malkin had a two-point night in Game 1 to tie Joe Sakic for seventh all-time in NHL playoff history multi-point games. Sidney Crosby still sits solidly in third place after his multi-point last outing in Game 3.