PREVIEW 7:30 AM EDT
Looking for their ninth win in the last 11 games, the Flyers (41-22-7) will attempt to put their struggles in afternoon games behind them over the course of this weekend. Today, the team faces a road matinee against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Boston Bruins (40-27-3). The game starts at 1 p.m. EDT and will be broadcast locally on CSN Philly and nationally on NHL Network.
This is the fourth and final regular season meeting between the clubs, which have squared off in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in each of the two previous seasons. This season, both clubs have won once in regulation on the other one's home ice, and the third game was a seesaw affair decided by shootout.
The Flyers won in Boston, 2-1, on opening night of the regular season. On Dec. 17, the visiting Bruins scored early and often in a frightful 6-0 beatdown in a Saturday afternoon game. Philly brought a seven-game winning streak into that game and then, starting with getting blown out by the Bruins, played inconsistently for the next two months.
The clubs squared off in another weekend matinee game on Jan. 22. Once again, the Bruins jumped on the Flyers very quickly after the opening faceoff. Things looked bleak for the Flyers, who were playing without three regular forwards (Jaromir Jagr, Danny Briere and James van Riemsdyk). Boston led 3-1 after the first period.
In the middle stanza, Scott Hartnell scored a natural hat trick (2 PPGs, 1 ESG) to turn the deficit into a one-goal lead. The lead changed hands again quickly in the third period, as Boston re-tied the game and then grabbed a 5-4 advantage within the first five minutes. Midway through the third, Max Talbot scored his second goal of the game to knot the score at 5-5. The game went to a shootout, where Tim Thomas stopped 2 of 3 shots and Ilya Bryzgalov went 0-for-2.
Boston was widely considered the best team in the NHL at the time the calendar flipped from 2011 to 2012. Since then, however, the defending champions have struggled both with key injuries and game-to-game inconsistency. Of late, the bottom has dropped out for the Bruins, who have lost 10 of their last 15 games (5-9-1). Nevertheless, they remain an extremely dangerous opponent, especially because they have at least temporarily fallen out of first place in the Northeast Division.
The Bruins once-secure hold on a top-two seeding in the Eastern Conference slipped away and Boston would now be the seventh seed if the playoffs started today. However, the Bruins are only one point behind the Ottawa Senators and have two games in hand. With a win today over the Flyers, Boston could jump right back into the second seed pending the outcome of the Senators' home clash tonight with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Meanwhile, the Flyers will look to continue the strong two-way play they've exhibited in recent weeks, and Bryzgalov hopes to maintain the form that just saw him set a new franchise record for consecutive shutout minutes. In the 30 games Flyers have won this season with Bryzgalov starting (Sergei Bobrovsky got one win in relief), Bryz sports a 1.90 GAA and a .933 SV%. That does not include the 0-0 game against the Islanders that the team lost in a shootout.
The Flyers' injury report remains the same as it has been over the last week. Pavel Kubina (upper body) has been skating on his own but has not rejoined the club at practice, while Andrej Meszaros (groin) has yet to skate. James van Riemsdyk (broken foot) had surgery on March 6 and hopes to return for the start of the playoffs.
Boston is still missing a host of key players as well. Top line forward Nathan Horton (concussion), versatile forward Rich Peverley (knee), goaltender Tuukka Rask (abdominal) and Max Sauve (hip) will all be out of the lineup again today.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
Wellwood - Briere - Voracek
Read - Schenn - Simmonds
Talbot - Couturier - Rinaldo
Carle - Timonen
Grossmann - Coburn
Lilja - Gustafsson
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
BRUINS
Lucic - Krejci - Caron
Marchand - Bergeron - Seguin
Pouliot - Kelly - Rolston
Paille - Campbell - Thornton
Chara - Seidenberg
Boychuk - Corvo
McQuaid - Ference
Thomas
[Turco]
**********
Use coupon code "FlyersBuzz" on
HockeyTickets.ca between now and the end of the regular season to receive a 10% discount on all ticket orders over $150 and also have a chance to win two free lower-level seats to a Flyers regular season game of your choice at the Wells Fargo Center.
KINDLE USERS: Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»