UPDATE 12:30 EDT

Jordan Leopold will be in the lineup tonight for Buffalo, returning ahead of projections. Chris Pronger took part in practice with the Flyers, but his status remains unknown.

It appears as if Nikolay Zherdev will get in the lineup tonight. The Flyers confirmed that the facial injury Andreas Nodl sustained on Saturday will keep him out of the lineup tonight.

As most expected, Brian Boucher is starting in goal tonight for the Flyers. Michael Leighton will be the backup.


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PREVIEW 7:45 AM EDT

No playoff series is over until it's over. However, the vast majority of the time, whichever club gets to three wins first is also the club that gets the clinching fourth win. When a team drops the opening game of the series on home ice, it finds itself in a position of realistically needing to win three of the next four games to regain the upper-hand.

The Flyers took the first step in that direction on Saturday night, taking a bizarre 5-4 game at the Wells Fargo Center to even up their series with the Buffalo Sabres at one game apiece. Coming off a regular season in which they were actually a better road club than home team for much of the season, the Flyers will now look to accomplish at least a split in Buffalo, starting with tonight's game at the HSBC Center.

For the Flyers to take Game 3, they will need to continue getting players into the high risk/high reward areas of the ice, which they did better on Saturday than in the series opener. Deflections, screens and winning scrambles around the net are the surest way to render any goalie a non-factor. Get enough players into the slot and skilled players like Claude Giroux will eventually score.

Sooner rather than later, the Flyers had better get their power play going. The team nearly lost Game 2 on both ends of special teams, and the power play in particular needs to start producing if the Flyers are to win this series.

At the other end of the ice, the Flyers are going to need a performance in goal like the one Brian Boucher had in relief of Sergei Bobrovsky on Saturday or the one Bobrovsky turned in during Game 1. The Sabres started to get their skating and forechecking games in gear in Game 2, and they figure to be the club that comes out a little more aggressively in this tilt. The Flyers' goalie -- which most think will be Boucher tonight -- cannot let in the types of goals that Bobrovsky yielded in Game 2.

Boucher is a competitor, but he's been known to be vulnerable to the short-side and when forced to move laterally. The biggest advantage that Boucher has over Bobrovsky right now is his calmness and experience. Bobrovsky is learning first-hand that there's a difference between regular season pressure and playoff pressure, and it has been affecting him mentally. Last game, he was clearly pressing to do too much, and ended up doing too little. It's not like Bobrovsky to flail and flop around the way he did in Game 2.

There were times in Game 2 where the absences of Chris Pronger and Jordan Leopold were evident for their respective teams. Pronger not only adds an offensive threat from the blueline and a snarly mean streak (especially in the playoffs), he also helps calm things down at times when the pace of the game is going against his club. Without 13-goal scoring defenseman Leopold for Buffalo, some of the defensive coverages have been simplified for the Flyers. Neither player is expected to be ready to play tonight.

Andreas Nodl sustained a deep cut under his right eye in Game 2 -- pretty silly to invoke the "upper body injury" designation for something like that -- and is questionable for tonight. If he can't go, one of Nikolay Zherdev or Jody Shelley will dress for the game.


PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)

FLYERS

JVR - Richards - Versteeg
Hartnell - Briere - Leino
Carcillo/Nodl/Zherdev - Giroux - Carter
Carcillo/Powe/Shelley - Betts - Powe/Shelley

Coburn - Timonen
Meszaros - O'Donnell
Carle - Syvret

Boucher/Bobrovsky


SABRES

Vanek - Connolly - Pominville
Ennis - Boyes - Stafford
Gerbe - Gaustad - Kaleta
Niedermayer - McCormick - Grier

Butler - Myers
Weber - Sekera
Montador - Gragnani

Miller
[Enroth]

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