PREVIEW 1:15 AM EST
Coming off a frustrating 3-0 shutout loss to Boston, the Flyers (15-7-4) have played .500 hockey over their last 10 games and need to get back to the type of efforts that lifted the club to a 9-0-1 stretch prior to their recent uneven play. One week ago in Newark, the Flyers played two desultory periods before turning up the energy and coming back to force overtime. Ultimately, the Devils (15-7-4) prevailed in a shootout.
With the Flyers' powerplay struggling mightily of late, Peter Laviolette has shuffled the powerplay lineup at practice this past week. It remains to be seen if he'll make changes at even strength, but he did try out some different combinations in the third period of the Bruins game. In the Boston game, the Flyers showed plenty of hustle and effort but ran into a brick wall in goaltender Tim Thomas and were hurt by a couple defensive miscues in the first period. On the flip side, Sergei Bobrovsky is coming off a very strong outing in a losing cause.
At practice, the powerplay units were shuffled to have Mike Richards working with Ville Leino and Jeff Carter on one unit, and Danny Briere centering Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell on the other. On 5-on-3 drills, Chris Pronger played as a forward in front of the net.
The Devils are coming off a brutal outing against the Canadiens. However, indications form New Jersey are that the club will go with the same lines to start the game today.
Project lineups (subject to change)
FLYERS
JVR - Richards - Nodl
Hartnell - Briere - Leino
Zherdev/Powe - Giroux - Carter
Shelley - Betts - Powe/Zherdev
Pronger - Carle
Coburn - Timonen
Meszaros - O'Donnell
Bobrovsky
[Boucher]
DEVILS
Kovalchuk - Zubrus - Vasyunov
Elias - Arnott - Tedenby
Rolston - Zajac - Tedenby
Pelley - Mair - Gionta
White - Tallinder
Greene - Fayne
Volchenkov - Tallinder
Hedberg
[McKenna]
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Today's
Daily Drop at Versus.com takes a look at the Canucks 3-0 shutout win over Chicago last night. There's no such thing as a true "redemption" game in December, but the Canucks were clearly up for this game and played an impressive game. Roberto Luongo was very sharp for Vancouver but the shot totals didn't tell the whole story.
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Thank you very much to everyone who stopped by at the Holiday Sports Book Extravaganza at the Barnes and Noble at the Court at Oxford Valley last night. It was a very nice event and I enjoyed meeting and talking hockey with all of you. It was also nice to be able to sit and talk with my NHL.com colleague Adam Kimelman at the "hockey" table.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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