UPDATE 5:15 PM
Danny Briere is out with an upper body injury tonight. He is considered day-to-day. Revised lines:
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
JVR - Read - Voracek
Nodl - Talbot - Simmonds
Shelley - Couturier - Rinaldo
Timonen - Coburn
Carle - Meszaros
Lilja - Gustafsson
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
PREVIEW 6:30 AM EDT
October has been a month of extreme highs and lows for the Philadelphia Flyers (5-4-1). Winners of four of their first five games and losers of four of their last five, the Flyers conclude their October schedule tonight with a game at the Wells Fargo Center against the Carolina Hurricanes (4-3-3). The game starts at 7 PM and will be broadcast locally on CSN Philly.
The Flyers are playing for the fourth time in six nights. They are coming off one of the craziest games in team history; a 9-8 loss to Winnipeg on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Canes are coming off their best effort of the season.
Last night, Carolina shut out Chicago, 3-0, behind 30 saves from Cam Ward and goals by Tim Brent, Brandon Sutter (a picturesque breakaway tally) and Jiri Tlusty. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Hurricanes, which included an overtime loss to St. Louis (3-2) and a shootout loss to Ottawa (3-2).
This is the first of four meetings between Philly and Carolina this season. The Flyers won three of four last year, but Carolina won the final meeting at home on Rod Brind'Amour Night. The Carolina victory snapped a streak in which Philly had won nine straight games against them.
Overall, the Flyers are 15-1-3 in their last 19 meetings with Carolina. The Canes' last regulation win in Philadelphia came on December 19, 2006, when they downed the Flyers, 2-1, in Philadelphia. Since that time, Carolina has prevailed once at home in regulation, twice in overtime and once by shootout. Of the 15 Flyers wins in the last 19 games, 11 have been in regulation, two in OT and two by shootout.
For the Flyers to potentially start building a new winning streak against the Hurricanes, they will need to rediscover the team-wide commitment to defense that enabled the club to post a 2.00 goals against average through the first five games (which has since risen to 3.50 for the season, and stands at a ridiculous 5.00 over the last five games).
All of the media focus this week has been on how much blame Ilya Bryzgalov deserves, especially after his self-castigating comments after Thursday games. While Bryzgalov has part of the problem the last few weeks, the bigger issue is really how poorly most of the defense -- with the shining exception of Kimmo Timonen -- has played and how the forwards have provided precious little support, especially since Chris Pronger (eye injury) went down.
In order for the club to get by defensively with two among offensive-minded rookie Erik Gustafsson and veteran 6th/7th defensemen Andreas Lilja and Matt Walker in the starting lineup, they need Braydon Coburn, Matt Carle and Andrej Meszaros to elavate their games in the same way that Timonen has.
Reigning Barry Ashbee Trophy winner Meszaros in particular has been so-so pretty much the entire month. Coburn has been inconsistent, both from game-to-game and even from shift to shift at times. Carle, who is typically a fast starter, started out playing tremendous hockey but has struggled since the Washington game. That has left Timonen as the only consistently reliable defenseman over the last five games, and that just won't get it done no matter who is in goal.
Up front, the Flyers used reshuffled combos on Thursday after Brayden Schenn suffered a broken foot in Montreal the previous game. James van Riemsdyk moved to the Danny Briere line, and both players had excellent games against the porous Winnipeg defense. The line's third member, Wayne Simmonds, has been pressing a bit offensively of late, but continues to be the team's best forechecker in terms of winning puck battles and creating opposition turnovers.
Meanwhile, Jaromir Jagr has racked up three goals and five points in the last three games and linemate Scott Hartnell has been even hotter with three goals and six points over that span. Their center, Claude Giroux, leads the team in scoring (6 goals, 5 assists) and scored in the Winnipeg game but his all-around play has taken a nosedive since the Washington game. Giroux needs to resume being the team's clear-cut best player -- not just offensively but all around -- on a game-in and game-out basis.
On the third line, two-thirds of the line that started the season is now back together. With the injury to Schenn, Matt Read has moved back from center to wing. That was a needed change, anyway, because he has been very effective on the wing but struggled mightily in the middle. Sean Couturier has moved back to centering the third line after being bumped down to the fourth line at even strength following Schenn's callup from the Phantoms.
With Couturier going back up to the third line, Max Talbot has moved back from wing to center. Talbot's all-around game has been very strong but he struggles on faceoffs. On Thursday, Talbot was flanked by agitator Zac Rinaldo and enforcer Jody Shelley. I suspect that Shelley may be back on the scratch list tonight in favor of Andreas Nodl.
The Flyers enter tonight with a still-healthy 24.5 percent success rate on the power play. However, they have missed Pronger in that department (as well as a host of other facets of the game on and off the ice) this week. The penalty kill has greatly suffered without Pronger, dropping to 80.4 percent on the season after being up around 85 percent.
Carolina is a pedestrian 13.7 percent on the power play and 78.6 percent on PK entering tonight. However, the Flyers of late have "helped" other teams pick up their special team numbers.
It appears as if Bryzgalov will be back in goal tonight for the Flyers. In my opinion, Paul Maurice ought to roll out Cam Ward again (despite the back-to-back game nights) coming off the All-Star netminder's shutout of Chicago last night. However, it is expected that former Flyer Brian Boucher will get the start tonight in his return to Philly.
For Bryzgalov, the biggest immediate challenge is to start tracking the puck better than he has and get himself in position to make himself look big in net. When he's on, Bryzgalov looks even bigger than his 6-foot-3, 213-pound frame suggests. There is no net at which to shoot. When he's off, he's out of position and recovers slowly. The player we saw in the first four games of the season is the one who was a Vezina candidate in Phoenix.
Eric Staal sustained a cut last night late in the first period, going off for repairs after being clipped by a high stick from Patrick Kane. He returned to the game and should be fine to play tonight. Likewise, former Flyers defenseman Joni Pitkanen was OK after temporarily leaving the ice following a push from behind near the end boards by Dan Carcillo. The Finn went on to log 22:21 of ice time last night.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
JVR - Briere - Simmonds
Voracek - Couturier - Read
Nodl - Talbot - Rinaldo
Timonen - Coburn
Carle - Meszaros
Lilja - Gustafsson
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
HURRICANES
Tlusty - Staal - LaRose
Skinner- Jokinen - Ruutu
Ponikarovsky - Sutter - Dwyer
Boychuk - Brent - Stewart
Allen - Gleason
McBean - Pitkanen
Harrison - Kaberle
Boucher
[Ward]
*****
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