FLYERS @ BLACKHAWKS GAME PREVIEW (6:15 A.M. EST)
Needing another win against an elite opponent to strengthen their hold on second place in the Metropolitan Division, the Philadelphia Flyers (35-25-7) will host the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks (39-15-11) on Tuesday night. Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:30 p.m. EST. The match will be televised locally on CSN Philly, nationally in the U.S. on NBC Sports Network and nationally in Canada on TSN2.
This is the second and final meeting of the season between the inter-Conference clubs that played in the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals. It is the lone game in Philadelphia.
On Dec. 11, the Flyers were at the tail end of a six-game road trip (2-2-1 to that juncture) when they arrived in Chicago to take on a Chicago team that had just dismantled the Dallas Stars, 6-2, on the road the previous evening. At the time, the Blackhawks had the best record in the NHL (22-6-5) and were 8-0-2 against Eastern Conference opponents.
Flyers coach Craig Berube tabbed Ray Emery to start in goal for the game in Chicago. Emery had been very sharp in his last start. Despite the team's 2-0 loss in Minnesota, the goaltending was excellent in that game. The previous season, Emery enjoyed a stellar season as the backup netminder for the Cup-winning Blackhawks.
Things started well for Emery and the Flyers, who were playing without Vincent Lecavalier (back injury). The Flyers outshot the Blackhawks by a 10-6 count in the first period and skated off to the locker room with a 1-0 lead.
Thereafter, the wheels fell off for the Flyers. The final 40 minutes saw the Hawks use their speed and precision puck movement to pick the Flyers apart. Compounding the problem was the fact that the Flyers abetted Chicago in the process by losing their discipline.
Emery, who gave up six goals on just 18 shots, had no chance on at least four of the Chicago tallies. Steve Mason yielded one goal in five shots worth of third period mopup work. The Hawks soared to a 7-2 victory. Jakub Voracek and Steve Downie notched Philly's goals on power plays in the first and second periods respectively.
The Flyers will spend the remainder of the month of March at or near home. Save for a March 26 road game at Madison Square Garden, the rest of the schedule for the month consists of home games. Up next on the slate will be Lindy Ruff's Dallas Stars on Thursday night.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
The Flyers are 5-2-1 after the Olympic break and 10-3-1 over their last 14 games. By virtue of their home-and-home sweep of the Pittsburgh Penguins over the weekend, the Flyers jumped from fourth place to second place in the Metropolitan Division.
On Saturday, the Flyers dismantled the visiting Penguins by a 4-0 count. Philly played arguably its best 60 minutes of hockey of the season, and dominated from start to finish. The other "Best Game of the Season" contenders to date are a 5-0 win in Ottawa on Nov. 12 and a 5-2 win in San Jose on Feb. 3.
Scott Hartnell (power play), Matt Read (shorthanded and even strength) and Vincent Lecavalier scored for the Flyers. Steve Mason recorded a 25-save shutout. The Flyers went 1-for-4 on the power play and 5-for-5 with a shorthanded goal against a Pittsburgh team that had entered the game with both the NHL's top-ranked penalty killing and power play units.
On Sunday in Pittsburgh, the Flyers once again jumped all over the Penguins early in the game. Philly build a 3-0 lead on an even strength goal by Brayden Schenn and a pair of power play tallies by Wayne Simmonds.
This time, the Penguins showed some push-back. After the Penguins cut the deficit to 3-2 with a mid-game power play chance to tie the game, Read responded with another shorthanded goal to extend the lead to 4-2. Once again, the Penguins countered with a goal to cut the gap to a single goal.
In the third period, Mason stepped to the forefront. He made 12 saves to slam the door on the Penguins. The Flyers also generated 12 shots of their own in preserving a 4-3 win.
For the weekend, the Flyers went a combined 3-for-7 on the power play and 9-for-9 on the PK with the two shorties by Read.
Offense has generally not been a problem for the Flyers since their early-season struggles. Through the first 15 games of the season, the Flyers scored just 22 goals (1.47 per game). Since that time, Philly has tallied 170 goals in 52 games (3.27 per game).
In the first five games after the Olympic break, the Flyers yielded 21 goals. However, they have allowed just five in the last three games.
Mason has been a very busy goaltender on both ends of the Olympic break. He started six of the final seven games leading into the break. Afterwards, he has started all eight games played to date. This was partially due to the sparse number of games in early March and partially due to Emery being unavailable due to a groin pull.
With Emery now healthy again and the Flyers playing for the third time in four nights, there is a decent chance that the former Blackhawk will once again get the start against Chicago.
BLACKHAWKS OUTLOOK
After getting off to a 23-6-5 start to the season through their blowout win over the Flyers earlier this season, the Blackhawks have not been as dominant. Over the last 31 games, Chicago has gone 16-9-6. While many clubs around the NHL would gladly take that record over a 31-game stretch, the Hawks are capable of doing better. Over the last 10 games, Chicago is a mediocre 5-5-0.
Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville saw the complacency that was setting in with his club. He didn't like it. The two-time Cup winning coach laced into his team following back-to-back 3-2 losses on the road in Colorado and at home against Nashville. He was especially unhappy with the majority of the first period against the Predators, calling it "as bad as we've probably played for any stretch all year" and saying "I'm not happy with our game at all."
The team responded. Hosting the longtime archrival Detroit Red Wings on Sunday, the Hawks limited the Wings to 20 shots en route to a 4-1 win. Nick Leddy (power play) opened the scoring for the Blackhawks, who later got tallies from Ben Smith, Marian Hossa and team captain Jonathan Toews (shorthanded). Corey Crawford made 19 saves.
Are the Blackhawks back on track now? Or did the win against the Red Wings lull them back into complacency mode? Much like the Penguins, who are running away with the Metropolitan Division despite the back-to-back regulation losses to the Flyers, it can be an ongoing challenge for a team in Chicago's spot to stay focused and motivated down the stretch.
Chicago is nine points behind Central Division and President's Trophy leader St. Louis, who have already reached 101 points for the season. Meanwhile, the fourth-place Minnesota Wild are 12 points behind the Blackhawks. Fifth-place Dallas is 17 points in back of Chicago.
Under the NHL's new playoff format this season, the Blackhawks are already virtually locked into a first-round playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche. All that is really at stake is which club will get the home ice advantage in the series. Trailing the second-place Avs by one point through 68 games apiece, the Hawks (34 regulation/OT wins) are far behind Colorado (41 ROW) in the primary tiebreaker category if they finish tied in points.
While playing for home ice gives a certain degree of incentive, it is not nearly the same as the urgency of playing either for first place or for the right just to get into the postseason. As such, Quenneville and the locker room leadership group has to stay on the team to keep its focus and intensity level high on a game-in and game-out basis.
The Hawks possess the NHL's speediest and most deadly attack, leading the league in scoring. Any time the Hawks can generate speed on the rush or the foecheck, they are a constant threat to score.
Chicago already has six players with more than 15 goals, and defenseman Duncan Keith has already hit the 50-assist plateau for the season. A former Norris Trophy winner, Keith could win his second Norris this season as a reward for a stellar all-around campaign.
Leading scorer Patrick Kane has 29 goals and 68 points in 67 games. Ex-Flyers forward Patrick Sharp is also one goal away from the 30-goal mark. Two-way forces Toews (27 goals, 64 points) and Hossa (25 goals, 53 points) remain threats every time they hit the ice.
The Hawks will be without young standout Brandon Saad (19 goals, 44 points) tonight. He is sidelined with an upper body injury. The rest of the weapons are intact. Hossa returned to the lineup against Detroit after missing five games with an upper-body injury. The veteran Slovakian star scored a line-rush goal and assisted on two others.
Even as Chicago roared out to their dominating first two-plus months of the season, the penalty kill was a weak spot for the club. The Hawks have actually picked up their penalty killing percentage since the Flyers scored two goals on the man-advantage in the first meeting of the season and the Hawks fell to the bottom of the NHL. Since that time, Chicago has improved to 23rd in the NHL for the season.
One other area where there is occasional vulnerability is that, because Chicago's defensemen handle the puck a lot, they also turn over their share of pucks. There may be some bang-bang opportunities for Philly tonight, but probably not many. It should also be noted that the Hawks block a lot of shots and are a very good backchecking club.
The Blackhawks enter tonight's game as one of the NHL's top-four deadliest opponents in terms of even strength goal differential. They are also in the league's top five in faceoff percentage. Winning these facets of the game will present massive challenges to the Flyers.
KEY STAT COMPARISONS (NHL OVERALL RANKING)
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.82 (11th), Blackhawks 3.32 (1st)
Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.81 (19th), Blackhawks 2.52 (11th)
Even strength Goals For/Against Ratio: Flyers 0.95 (18th), Blackhawks 1.41 (4th)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 20.1% (11th), Blackhawks 20.8% (4th)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 84.2% (8th), Blackhawks 80.6% (23rd)
Faceoff percentage: Flyers 49.8% (17th), Blackhawks 52.1% (5th)
PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)
FLYERS
19 Scott Hartnell - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
40 Vincent Lecavalier - 10 Brayden Schenn - 17 Wayne Simmonds
9 Steve Downie - 14 Sean Couturier - 24 Matt Read
12 Michael Raffl - 18 Adam Hall - 36 Zac Rinaldo
44 Kimmo Timonen - 5 Braydon Coburn
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 32 Mark Streit
47 Andrew MacDonald - 22 Luke Schenn
29 Ray Emery or 35 Steve Mason
Potential Scratches: Erik Gustafsson (healthy), Jay Rosehill (healthy), Hal Gill (healthy), Chris Pronger (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).
BLACKHAWKS
23 Kris Versteeg - 19 Jonathan Toews - 81 Marian Hossa
29 Bryan Bickell - 26 Michal Handzus - 88 Patrick Kane
10 Patrick Sharp - 65 Andrew Shaw - 12 Peter Regin
52 Brandon Bollig - 16 Marcus Kruger - 28 Ben Smith
2 Duncan Keith - 7 Brent Seabrook
27 Johnny Oduya - 4 Niklas Hjalmarsson
8 Nick Leddy - 17 Sheldon Brookbank
50 Corey Crawford
[31 Antti Raanta]
Potential Scratches: Brandon Saad (upper body), Michal Rozsival (healthy), David Rundblad (healthy), Nikolai Khabibulin (IR, shoulder surgery).
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