Welcome to the NHL On Tap, a daily look at the games on the NHL schedule. There are nine games on the schedule for Thursday, including two nationally televised in the United States. Thursday also marks the 17th week of "NHL Coast to Coast," a weekly whip-around studio show on Prime Video in Canada.

Matvei Michkov and Alex Ovechkin had already faced off twice in their NHL careers before Thursday night, but neither meeting (both games were in late October) lived up to the billing.

As coach John Tortorella chatted with the media Friday in the Flyers Training Center press conference room that overlooks the main sheet the team skates on, one player remained on the ice below. The sound of a puck could be heard as the bench boss spoke about 30 minutes after the Flyers wrapped up a short,