PREVIEW 8:00 AM EST
After the final game of their southern road trip, the Flyers (9-4-3) will look to bring 5 of 6 possible points back to Philadelphia. First, they must defeat the Carolina Hurricanes (6-8-3). Tonight's game starts at 7 PM and will be broadcast locally on CSN Philly.
This is the second of four meetings between the clubs this season. On Oct. 29, the Flyers conquered Carolina at the Wells Fargo Center by a 5-1 score. Most of the damage was done by the Flyers top line of Claude Giroux (1G, 3A), Jaromir Jagr (2G) and Scott Hartnell (1 G, 2 A), while Max Talbot scored a backbreaking shorthanded goal early in the third period. Jussi Jokinen scored the lone Carolina goal, coming on a fluke sequence where Hartnell accidentally slid into Ilya Bryzgalov and took the Philadelphia netminder out of the play. Jokinen scored into a wide open net.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a 3-2 win in Florida last night. Danny Briere, Braydon Coburn and Matt Read (penalty shot) provided the goals. Stellar penalty killing was Philadelphia's greatest asset in the game, while Bryzgalov was solid in net. Carolina had not been playing well lately, but enter this game coming off a 5-3 win on Saturday over the Eastern Conference leading Penguins.
Max Talbot lost part of a tooth and suffered a split lip as the result of a high stick last night. He is expected to play tonight. Ex-Flyer Joni Pitkanen (foot injury) will miss tonight's game and could be out all week.
Overall, the Flyers are 16-1-3 in their last 20 games against Carolina. After tonight, the teams rematch again in Philadelphia next Monday.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
JVR - Briere - Simmonds
Voracek - Talbot - Read
Zolnierczyk - Couturier - Rinaldo
Carle - Pronger
Coburn - Timonen
Lilja - Meszaros
Bobrovsky/Bryzgalov
HURRICANES
Staal - Sutter - LaRose
Skinner - Jokinen - Ruutu
Panikarovsky - Brent - Dwyer
Tlusty - Dalpe - Boychuk
Harrison - Gleason
Joslin - Kaberle
Allen - McBain
Ward
[Boucher]
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This week on NHL.com, I have an
article on Joni Pitkanen. Many of the themes of the piece should be familiar to Flyers fans.
The article was written before news broke of Pitkanen's foot injury that currently has him out of the Carolina lineup.
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