FLYERS VS. BRUINS GAME PREVIEW (6:15 A.M. EST)
Looking to end a three-game losing skid, the Philadelphia Flyers (25-21-6) are at home to take on the defending Eastern Conference champion Boston Bruins (31-15-3). Game time for the Saturday matinee at the Wells Fargo Center is 1:00 p.m. EST. The match will be televised locally on CSN Philadelphia.
This is the first of three meetings between the teams this season and the first of two in Philadelphia. The club will meet again on Philly in a nationally televised game on March 30 and conclude the season series with an April 5 matinee in Boston.
After today's game, the team with hold the Annual Flyers' Wives Carnival tomorrow afternoon. The team will return to practice on Monday and then play the Red Wings at home on Tuesday. From there, the Flyers embark on a brutally difficult three-game road trip where they will play each of the powerhouse California-based teams.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
The Flyers have a 5-5-2 record thus far in January. The club has scored three or more regulation goals in eight of the 12 games (5-1-2 record). Meanwhile, they have allowed three or more regulation goals in nine games (3-4-2 record), including each of the last eight matches.
The Flyers are coming off a 5-2 loss in Columbus on Thursday. In a game somewhat similar to a December road game against the Blue Jackets, the Flyers came back after trailing at the first intermission (in this case, briefly taking a 2-1 lead in the second period) only to fall behind again and lose by a significant margin. Brayden Schenn and Vincent Lecavalier (power play) scored for the Flyers.
The Flyers have not only been hemorrhaging goals of late, they've also been giving up way too many shots. Over the last five games, goaltenders Steve Mason and Ray Emery have been bombarded with an average of 36 shots per game. In Columbus, Emery faced 39 shots by Columbus. Mason is likely to be back in goal tonight.
Philadelphia made a forward line change last game. Craig Berube broke up the second line -- which had been the team's hottest line over the last six weeks -- in order to move struggling Lecavalier from third line right wing to his more accustomed center spot. In so doing, Brayden Schenn moved from center to left wing on the second line. Scott Hartnell, who had exclusively played left wing since he first came over to the Flyers from Nashville, played right wing on Sean Couturier's line.
On the Flyers' injury front, Zac Rinaldo (high ankle sprain) is slated to remain out of the lineup until after the Olympic break.
BRUINS OUTLOOK
Boston is coming off a four-day schedule break, while the Flyers are playing for the fourth time in six days. While there are no absolutes -- or excuses -- in hockey, this scenario favors the Flyers early in the game and the Bruins later.
Over the last eight weeks, the Flyers have become adept at playing comeback hockey. That is never ideal, however, and the Bruins are not usually an opponent against which chasing the game is going to yield a favorable outcome. Boston, which has the NHL's second-best goals against average, enters this game with a 22-5-1 record when scoring 1st and 4th in NHL (22-2-0) leading after 2nd pd.
The Bruins are 5-3-1 thus far in January. The club went through a little rough spell in which it lost three of four games but had points (2-0-1) in each of the last three games before the four idle nights.
On Sunday and Monday, the Bruins faced a pair of tough opponents. On Sunday, in a road rematch of last season's Stanley Cup Final matchup, the Bruins lost 3-2 via shootout to the Chicago Blackhawks. The next night in Boston, the Bruins coughed up a 2-0 lead to the Los Angeles Kings but quickly rebounded to win 3-2.
Brad Marchand tallied a first-period shorthanded goal for the Bruins and, in the third period, answered Jeff Carter's tying goal by putting the Bruins ahead again 18 seconds later. Patrice Bergon assisted on both Marchand goals. Torey Krug also scored for Boston in the opening period, while backup goalie Chad Johnson earned the win with 21 saves.
Overall, the Bruins have been a much better home than road team to date this season. Boston enters today with a 12-10-1 road record compared to its 19-5-2 mark at TD Garden.
After the Flyers staged their historic comebacks from a three-games-to-none series deficit and a 3-0 first-period deficit in Game 7 of the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals, the Bruins started to run roughshod over the Flyers. The next season, Boston swept the season series and then trounced Philly in a four-game playoff sweep.
Part of the reason why the Flyers started to add size and physicality on the blueline -- at the expense of some mobility -- may have been that the Bruins' big forwards had run roughshod over the team in muscle-to-muscle battles down low in the Philly zone during the 2011 playoffs. That was especially true of the trio of David Krejci, Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton (now with Columbus, replaced in Boston by Jarome Iginla).
Since the Flyers added the beefy likes of Nicklas Grossmann and Luke Schenn to the roster, they have fared a bit better against Boston in the regular season. The Flyers are 5-2-2 in their last nine games against Boston, including wins in each of the last two games in Philadelphia.
However, part of what makes the Bruins a tough matchup for most of the teams in the NHL is the depth and balance of their roster. Apart from size and muscle -- including arguably the most physically imposing defenseman in the NHL in Zdeno Chara -- the Bruins also have speedsters like Marchand and all-around talents like Bergeron and Loui Eriksson. They get strong goaltending from Tuukka Rask as well.
In virtually every major NHL statistical category, the Bruins rank in the top half of the NHL. They are very good at five-on-five play, rank in top half of both ends of special teams, the top eight in offense, the top two in GAA and the top five in faceoffs. As such there are no glaring areas where the Bruins are vulnerable, except for some injury issues on the blueline.
With the Flyers struggling right now on the defensive side of the puck and both Schenn and Grossmann struggling this month, it will be interesting to see if head coach Craig Berube sacrifices some muscle to get the small but more mobile Erik Gustafsson back into the lineup or if he continues with the lineup that he has been using. Andrej Meszaros' recent offensive hot streak has probably earned the Slovakian defensemen more time in the lineup, although he has had his own share of defensive misadventures along with undersized offensive defenseman Mark Streit.
On the Boston injury front, defenseman Dennis Seidenberg (knee surgery to repair torn ligaments) was lost in December for the season. Defenseman Dougie Hamilton (concussion) is officially a game-time decision, as is forward Chris Kelly (leg). Adam McQuaid (leg) is unavailable.
KEY STAT COMPARISONS (NHL OVERALL RANKING)
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.65 (16th), Bruins 2.86 (8th)
Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.83 (19th), Bruins 2.16 (2nd)
Even strength Goals For/Against Ratio: Flyers 0.89 (22nd), Bruins 1.32 (5th)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 18.5% (18th), Bruins 19.1% (13th)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 84.3% (5th), Bruins 82.8% (12th)
Faceoff percentage: Flyers 49.2% (20th), Bruins 52.1% (5th)
PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)
FLYERS
12 Michael Raffl - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
10 Brayden Schenn - 40 Vincent Lecavalier - 17 Wayne Simmonds
24 Matt Read - 14 Sean Couturier - 19 Scott Hartnell
9 Steve Downie - 18 Adam Hall - 37 Jay Rosehill
44 Kimmo Timonen - 5 Braydon Coburn
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 32 Mark Streit
41 Andrej Meszaros - 22 Luke Schenn
35 Steve Mason
[29 Ray Emery]
Potential Scratches: Chris VandeVelde (healthy), Hal Gill (healthy), Erik Gustafsson (healthy), Zac Rinaldo (high ankle sprain), Chris Pronger (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).
BRUINS
17 Milan Lucic - 46 David Krejci - 12 Jarome Iginla
63 Brad Marchand - 37 Patrice Bergeron - 18 Reilly Smith
34 Carl Söderberg - 51 Ryan Spooner - 21 Loui Eriksson
22 Shawn Thornton - 11 Gregory Campbell - 20 Daniel Paille
33 Zdeno Chara - 55 Johnny Boychuk
86 Kevan Miller - 43 Matt Bartkowski
62 Zach Trotman - 47 Torey Krug
40 Tuukka Rask
[30 Chad Johnson]
Scratches: Dougie Hamilton (concussion, game-time decision), Chris Kelly (leg, game-time decision), Jordan Caron (healthy), Adam McQuaid (leg), Dennis Seidenberg (IR, knee surgery), Marc Bergeron (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).
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BULLIES TEAMS HONORED
All living members of the Flyers' 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cup winning teams are in Philadelphia for a special reunion over Carnival weekend. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Flyers' first championship, which made them the first 1967 NHL expansion team to win the Cup.
Today, the Cup-team Alumni will be presented with the Spirit of Giving Award for the work that so many of them have done in the Philadelphia community even long after their playing days ended. A large percentage of the team that Fred Shero said would "walk together forever" permanently settled in the Delaware Valley.
At tomorrow's Wives Carnival, there will be a special spotlight on the Flyers Alumni at Alumni Alley, located on the Mezzanine Level of the Wells Fargo Center.
Barry Ashbee, an all-star defenseman in 1973-74 and an assistant coach on the second Cup team, passed away in 1977. Head coach Fred Shero passed in 1990. Right winger "Cowboy" Bill Flett, a member of the first Cup team, died in 1999. Wayne Stephenson, Bernie Parent's backup acquired in 1974-75, passed in 2010.
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