In what is essentially a playoff game, count on the Flyers and Islanders to make life easy on their goaltenders

Monday’s contest between the New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers is essentially a playoff game.

The Isles trail the Flyers by five points for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but they have two games in hand on their Metropolitan Division rivals. Thus, a win in regulation for the Islanders would mean they technically control their own destiny in the race against Philadelphia. The flip side is that a loss would essentially eliminate Patrick Roy’s team.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact the bookies have this one priced pretty close to a coin flip. The Flyers are a slight -120 favorite at the time of writing.

Right away I’ll say that I think the price on the sides look right here. There’s a lot of noise with these two teams right now, but overall I think it’s fair to say Philadelphia deserves to be a slight favorite at home over the Isles.

The Islanders scored a big win over the Florida Panthers last Thursday, but that was an outlier result in an otherwise drab run of form since a six-game winning streak got the Isles back into the race at the beginning of March. The Islanders are 2-7-1 in their last 10 games and are coming off a 1-1 trip through Florida that saw them defeat the Panthers, 3-2, and then lose to the Lightning, 4-1, on Saturday. That two-step through the Sunshine State is a decent representation of the 2023-24 regular season for the Isles. At times, they’ve been able to show some impressive flashes, especially under Patrick Roy, but they’ve been plagued by inconsistency since October.

What’s most frustrating is it seems that every time the Isles fix one area of their game, another problem emerges. The Islanders have been a strong defensive team of late, limiting opponents to just 77 high-danger scoring chances at 5-on-5 in their last 10 games, but they’re now running cold offensively. The Islanders have scored just 19 goals in their last 10 contests and six of those came in a win over the Winnipeg Jets.

The Flyers have been more consistent this season compared to the Isles, but they’re showing some cracks during their current 3-5-2 malaise. Philadelphia has conceded 41 goals in its last 10 games, but what’s more disappointing is that the Flyers are generally still playing a pretty solid game at 5-on-5. They’re just not getting saves right now.

» READ MORE: Ivan Fedotov’s addition shakes up the Flyers’ goalie rotation. Here’s where it stands.

Samuel Ersson, a rookie goalie who entered the season as the backup, has been thrust into the starting role due to Carter Hart’s suspension for his involvement in the Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal, and while Ersson has done an admirable job this season, he seems to be running on fumes. Neither Cal Petersen nor Felix Sandstrom have provided any help for Ersson, so the Flyers did something surprising and brought Ivan Fedotov over from the KHL. Fedotov, 27, is 6-foot-7 and has strong numbers in Russia, but he’s never played a professional game in North America, so it’s anybody’s guess how he will fare.

It’s unknown at the time of writing if John Tortorella will roll with Fedotov on Monday, but it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this wager. No matter who is in goal, whether it be a struggling Ersson or Fedotov in his debut, the Flyers will likely do everything they can to make life easy on them.

I’d look for a similarly pragmatic approach from the Islanders in a must-win game.

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