PREVIEW 7 AM EST
Trying for the third time this season to reach the .500 mark, the Philadelphia Flyers (9-10-1) host the Toronto Maple Leafs (11-8-0) at the Wells Fargo Center. The game starts at 7 p.m. EST and will be televised on CSN Philly.
This is the second of three meetings between the teams this season and the lone match in Philadelphia. On Feb 11, the Flyers got their season-high six game road trip off to an inauspicious start with a 5-2 loss in Toronto.
In that game, the Flyers played a solid first period, but Toronto took over the game in a second period with three unanswered goals. After falling behind 4-1, Peter Laviolette brought in Brian Boucher to relieve Ilya Bryzgalov. The Flyers wasted a five-minute power play and never mounted any sort of challenge. Toronto's win was punctuated in the third period by James van Riemsdyk blowing past Luke Schenn to go in and score.
The Flyers enter this game coming off a dramatic comeback win over Winnipeg that saw Philly's power play strike three times en route to erasing deficits of 1-0 and 3-1 to skate off with a 5-3 victory. Brayden Schenn scored twice, Wayne Simmonds earned his second Gordie Howe Hat Trick of the week, Jakub Voracek racked up three more assists and both Claude Giroux and Zac Rinaldo (12 hits, empty net goal) added single tallies. Nicklas Grossmann was credited with seven hits and three blocked shots.
On Saturday, Scott Hartnell made a surprise early return to lineup from a broken bone in his right foot. However, defenseman Andrej Meszaros (shoulder) is not yet ready to return, and Matt Read (torn muscles near his ribcage) is out until April.
The Maple Leafs come to Philadelphia looking to move past a disappointing 3-2 regulation loss to Ottawa. The game was tied, 2-2, until Ottawa scored the winning goal with less than a half minute left in the third period. The team is 3-3-0 since the big win over the Flyers; a game that saw starting goalie James Reimer suffer a knee injury that forced him out of the lineup.
Apart from Reimer, the Leafs remain without Joffrey Lupul (arm) and Matt Frattin (knee). Enforcer Colton Orr, who scored the game-turning goal in the first match against Philadelphia, is questionable for tonight with a lower-body injury.
PROJECTED LINEUPS
FLYERS
19 Scott Hartnell - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
48 Danny Briere - 10 Brayden Schenn - 17 Wayne Simmonds
25 Max Talbot - 14 Sean Couturier - 36 Zac Rinaldo
15 Tye McGinn - 26 Ruslan Fedotenko - 9 Mike Knuble
44 Kimmo Timonen - 22 Luke Schenn
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 5 Braydon Coburn
29 - Erik Gustafsson -27 Bruno Gervais
30 Ilya Bryzgalov
[33 Brian Boucher]
MAPLE LEAFS
21 James van Riemsdyk - 42 Tyler Bozak - 81 Phil Kessel
11 Jay McClement - 84 Mikhail Grabovski - 41 Nikolai Kulemin
16 Clarke MacArthur - 43 Nazem Kadri - 47 Leo Komarov
38 Frazer McLaren - 20 David Steckel - 18 Mike Brown
3 Dion Phaneuf - 55 Korbinian Holzer
36 Carl Gunnarsson - 53 Michael Kostka
45 Mark Fraser - 4 Cody Franson
30 Ben Scrivens
[40 Jussi Rynnäs]
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