Flyers vs. Penguins, Game 2 of 2020-21 season: Live stream, storylines, game time and more

Get out the brooms? No, this is not a Phillies story.

The Flyers have four two-game sets against the Penguins in this abnormal 2020-21 season. To kick it off, the Flyers have an opportunity to sweep the first two-game set when they host the Penguins on Friday.

Let's get into the essentials for the game:

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When: 7 p.m. ET with The Warm Up at 6 p.m. ET and Flyers Pregame Live at 6:15 p.m. ET
Where: Wells Fargo Center
Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Live stream: NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com and the NBC Sports MyTeams app

• Back in October, after a week of free agency had passed without the Flyers adding a forward, general manager Chuck Fletcher praised his team's depth at the position.

Ultimately, the Flyers were expecting heftier strides from Joel Farabee and Nicolas Aube-Kubel, had some first-year guys knocking on the door and were optimistic about the returns of Oskar Lindblom and Nolan Patrick.

"Maybe I like our forward group more than you do or some other people," Fletcher said. "I think we’re really deep on the wing, I think we’re as deep as any team on the wing."

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Despite it being only Game 1, Fletcher had to feel a little validation after watching his club beat the Penguins, 6-3, in Wednesday night's season opener, a game in which 12 different Flyers recorded at least a point.

The 20-year-old Farabee, who was 11th on the Flyers in scoring last season and didn't have more than two points in a game, became the first Flyer to put up four or more points in a season opener since Ray Allison in 1982.

Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek finished with a combined three points (all assists), and the Flyers still put up six goals. That wouldn't have happened in the seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

It is only one game. After all, the Flyers have won their last five season openers. They could be shut out Friday night and suddenly the buzz about their depth comes down a peg.

Still, Fletcher and the Flyers had solid reasons — not to mention a flat cap — to stand pat at forward this offseason and at least see what they had in-house to open this season. Wednesday was an auspicious start.

• If their line clicks with the size and skill, James van Riemsdyk, Nolan Patrick and Voracek will make the Flyers look awfully deep.

All three players can protect the puck and make plays with it in the offensive zone. The problem is when they're in the defensive zone, they can get stuck there and then their effectiveness — not to mention their ice time — takes a major hit.

"I'm looking for them to spend a little less time in our zone," Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said Friday morning. "They had some long zone time there as far as not being able to maybe support one another real quick. But I thought for the most part, that line competed hard, tried to do the right things. Obviously it was Nolan's first game and there were a lot of positive signs, so I feel that if all three of them want to work together and want to work the right way, it gives us good balance in our lines. Hopefully there's some chemistry that gets formed there and they become real effective for us."

• Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry has allowed six goals in his last two regular-season games. He surrendered six in his final 2019-20 regular-season game on March 8 before the pause and yielded six to the Flyers on Wednesday.

Jarry, who trained with Carter Hart this offseason, went 20-12-1 with a 2.43 goals-against average and .921 save percentage last season.

Pittsburgh winger Jake Guentzel was quiet in the opener but don't bank on that happening again. He has 24 points (10 goals, 14 assists) in 18 career games against the Flyers, including the regular season and playoffs.