PREVIEW 11 AM EST
After an eight-day holiday hiatus, the Flyers (22-8-5) begin their toughest stretch of the regular season, starting tonight. The club will begin a stretch of 9 of 10 games on the road with a game against the Northwest Division leading Vancouver Canucks (21-8-5).
The Flyers have generally fared well in their periodic visits to Vancouver over the last decade-plus but this is a better Canucks team than most of the ones the Flyers have faced in past meetings. Both Philly and Vancouver have won 7 of their last 10 games heading into this one.
Whenever a team has a long stretch of days without a game, there are at least five major areas of concern. The passing may not be sharp, especially early in the game. The goaltender may take awhile to get in rhythm. The club may be prone to offsides and/or early-game penalties caused by overaggressiveness. Finally, the special teams may be out of synch.
For the Flyers, the time off may actually have been a good thing in the special teams department, as they have been scuffling on the power play and hot-and-cold on the penalty kill for over a month. The team had primarily been winning games on the strength of its excellent five-on-five play.
The Flyers are going to have to get through this entire difficult stretch without Chris Pronger (foot surgery) and the pressure will be on the defense to avoid turnovers against the Vancouver forecheck. The Canucks can not only generate their own scoring chances, they are also opportunistic about capitalizing on giveaways. Most of all, the Flyers must stay out of the penalty box against a club that is clicking at 23.9 percent on the man advantage.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Nodl - Richards - Giroux
Hartnell - Briere - Leino
JVR - Carter - Zherdev
Carcillo - Betts - Powe
Meszaros - Carle
Coburn - Timonen
Bartulis - O'Donnell
Boucher/Bobrovsky
CANUCKS
D. Sedin - H. Sedin - Burrows
Hansen - Kesler - Tambellini
Torres - Malhotra - Samuelsson
Glass - Bolduc - Volpatti
Edler - Ehrhoff
Hamhuis - Bieksa
Alberts - Ballard
Luongo
[Schneider]
*****
Today's
Daily Drop at Versus.com looks at the outstanding season that Kings' goaltender Jonathan Quick has had this season. I admit that I was wrong about Quick. I expected him to fade in the same way that former LA goalies Jamie Storr and Byron Dafoe did after strong starts to their careers. I also thought that Jonathan Bernier would unseat Quick pretty quickly. Instead, Quick looks like a serious Vezina candidate so far this season.
Either today or tomorrow, Versus.com will also post an article I wrote on the top 6 already drafted European prospects currently playing in Euro leagues. I will post the link when it goes live online.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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