PREVIEW 7:00 AM EDT
Coming off a workmanlike victory in Boston on Thursday, the Flyers (1-0-0) travel to Newark to take on the New Jersey Devils. The game will be both the season and home openers for the Devils. Last year, the teams split the season series, 3-3, with the Flyers winning three of the first four and the Devils claiming the final two games. Overall, including the 2010 playoffs, the Flyers are 12-4-1 in their last 17 meetings with New Jersey.
The game is slated to start at 7:00 p.m. EDT. It will be broadcast locally on CSN Philly.
It would be virtually impossible for the New Jersey team to get off to a worse start than it did last year (10-29-2), or to get hotter than it did after the All-Star break (28-10-3, but by that point, the Devils were hopelessly out of the playoff race). This year, former Panthers coach Pete DeBoer takes over behind the Devils' bench.
There is reason to believe that the Devils will go back to being a playoff contender this season. New captain Zach Parise is healthy as is ageless future Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur (who looked very good against the Flyers in the preseason). Longtime Flyers killer Patrik Elias is coming off the ninth 20-plus goal campaign of his career, while Ilya Kovalchuk still managed to score 31 goals in a down year. However, the club will be without top-line center Travis Zajac (Achilles tendon) for several months.
The Flyers will have to be patient and opportunistic tonight to win their second game of the season. The Claude Giroux line was ultimately the difference maker in Philly's 2-1 preseason win over the Devils. In that game, a well-timed Zac Rinaldo fight helped to turn around the momentum after New Jersey controlled the game early.
Philadelphia took too many penalties in the opener against Boston, but managed to kill the final four disadvantaged after Boston converted the first one. The Flyers were 1-for-4 on their own power plays in Boston.
Ilya Bryzgalov is coming off an excellent debut in orange and black. He stopped 22 of 23 in the opener in Boston, making clutch saves whenever the team needed them.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
JVR - Giroux - Jagr
Voracek - Briere - Simmonds
Hartnell - Couturier - Read
Nödl - Talbot - Rinaldo
Carle - Pronger
Timonen - Meszaros
Coburn - Walker
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
DEVILS
Parise - Elias - Sykora
Kovalchuk - Zubrus - Palmieri
Henrique - Josefson - Clarkson
Boulton - Mills - Tedenby
Greene - Larsson
Tallinder -Fayne
Salvador - Volchenkov
Brodeur
[Hedberg]
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