UPDATE 5:00 PM EDT
It appears that Harry Zolnierczyk will be a healthy scratch tonight and Jody Shelley is in.
PREVIEW 7:15 AM EDT
The injury-riddled Flyers (6-4-1) begin a stretch of three games in four nights when they travel to Buffalo tonight to take on Lindy Ruff's Sabres (6-4-0). The game will be broadcast nationally on Versus, starting at 7:30 PM EDT.
The last time these two clubs saw one another, they were in the handshake line at the conclusion of Philadelphia's Game 7 victory in the 2011 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. Since that time, both clubs have undergone major changes.
Philadelphia is just 2-4-0 over its last six games. The team defense and goaltending sprung a leak after a very strong start over the first five games. However, the club as a whole and goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov in particular are coming off a strong bounceback performance in a 5-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. The lone Carolina goal came on a fluky play in which Scott Hartnell accidentally slid into Bryzgalov, taking the goalie completely out of the play and leaving a wide open net for Jussi Jokinen.
Offensively, the top Flyers line of Claude Giroux, Jaromir Jagr and Hartnell has been carrying the load, especially in the absence of both Chris Pronger (eye injury) and Danny Briere (upper body injury). Giroux is coming off a four-point game on Saturday, while Jagr (five goals and two assists in the last five games) and Hartnell (nine points in the last five, including four goals) have meshed with their widely divergent styles of play.
On the flip side, Philly needs to get James van Riemdsyk and Jakub Voracek going on a much more consistent basis. Without Briere or rookie Matt Read (upper body injury) in the lineup tonight to provide additional scoring threats, the checking tasks for the Sabres become much easier unless JVR and/or Voracek step up.
The Flyers' power play has been solid this season, posting an overall 22.2 percent success rate. However, the club is just 1-for-14 in the three games since Pronger went down. The club needs its players out on the points, especially Andrej Meszaros, to start putting more shots on net so other teams can't take away everything down low and concede the points because Philly isn't getting its shots through from up high. The Flyers will face a stiff challenge tonight against a Sabres team that has killed off 91.9 percent of its penalties.
Defensively, Kimmo Timonen has elevated his game all season. He and goaltender Bryzgalov need a little more consistent help from Meszaros, Braydon Coburn and Matt Carle and a little better coverage support from the forwards. The breakouts also need to be cleaner. The Flyers showed improvement in all of these areas on Saturday but there were still a few too many miscues early in the first and second periods. Bryzgalov was back on the top of his game on Saturday, and will need to do it again tonight.
The Sabres, who opened the season in Europe as part of the NHL Premiere, have lost three of their last four games after posting a three-game winning streak. Head coach Lindy Ruff has shaken up his forward lines at practice this week on the heels of a 3-2 home loss to Florida on Saturday.
Of greatest note to Philadelphia fans, former Flyers forward Ville Leino, is slated to center the top line tonight, flanked by scorching hot Thomas Vanek (8 goals, 15 points, including 2 goals and five points in the last three games) and Jason Pominville (5 goals, 14 points). Leino, who was a big part of the success of Danny Briere's line in the 2010 playoffs and the first half of last season, has been struggling so far to live up to the huge free agent contract he signed with the Sabres. A couple of times, he has wound up on the fourth line, and benched during the third period.
Buffalo's power play, which features the likes of Vanek, Pominville, Derek Roy and Tyler Myers as well as Leino (who has primarily been used on the secondary unit), has been one of the better ones in the NHL over the balance of the first 10 games. The Sabres have connected on 21.9 percent of their power plays to date.
The Flyers' PK ran into some problems last week without Pronger available, but the team took care of business (and mostly stayed out of the box) on Saturday. For the season, Philly is 81.5 percent on the PK with a shorthanded goal scored by Max Talbot in the most recent game.
On the injury front for Buffalo, forward Jochen Hecht (concussion) is out, and it's also likely forward Tyler Ennis (ankle) also will not play tonight. A dynamic young forward who tallied a pair of goals and two assists in the playoff series against the Flyers last year, Ennis has scuffled so far in seven games.
In order to fill out their forward lineup, the Flyers called up Phantoms standout Harry Zolnierczyk along with Ben Holmstrom. They will step into the lineup for Briere and Read tonight. Brayden Schenn (broken foot, LTIR) is not expected to return until December. The club sent previously waived defenseman Matt Walker to the Phantoms yesterday to open sufficient cap space for the callups.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
JVR - Couturier - Voracek
Nodl - Talbot - Simmonds
Zonierczyk - Holmstrom - Rinaldo
Timonen - Coburn
Carle - Gustafsson
Lilja - Meszaros
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
SABRES
Vanek - Leino - Pominville
Adam - Roy - Stafford
Gerbe - Gaustad - Kaleta
McCormick - Ellis - Boyes
Regehr - Myers
Sekera - Ehrhoff
Leopold - Gragnani
Miller
[Enroth]
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This week's installment of
Across the Pond at NHL.com takes an in-depth look at KalPa Kuopio, which is currently in first place in Finland's SM-liiga. The majority owner of the team, of course, is former Flyers winger Sami Kapanen, with minority shares owned by Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell.
A sidebar to the KalPa feature looks at Team Finland's roster for the upcoming Karjala tournament in Helsinki. Among the players selected are Flyers goaltending prospect Niko Hovinen, alumni defensemen Lasse Kukkonen and Ossi Väänänen and ex-Philly forward Mika Pyörälä.
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FROM THE 'TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS' FILES
It is my pleasure to welcome back
Philly Phaithful apparel as the sponsor of the Flyers blog during the holiday season. Owner Dan Hershberg is a longtime HB reader, devoted Flyers fans and a friend with whom I've corresponded for years about a host of hockey topics.
KINDLE USERS: Please sign up for Flyers Buzz, which includes a free 14-day trial and is just 99 cents per month thereafter. For more information
click here.
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Last but most certainly not least, a heartfelt thank you goes out to all HockeyBuzz readers. For the first month of the 2011-12 regular season, nearly 200,000 site users clicked on my Flyers blogs and a combined total of 223,495 viewed the October Flyers and Stars blogs on this site. I will strive to be worthy of all the support that I have received.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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