PREVIEW 8:15 AM EST
In their first game in the second half of the 2011-12 regular season, the Philadelphia Flyers (25-12-4) travel to Long Island to take on a New York Islanders (15-19-6) team that that they have dominated over the last four-plus seasons. The game starts at 7 PM and will be broadcast locally on CSN Philly.
This is the second of six meetings between the teams this season, and the second of three at the venerable Nassau Coliseum.
On the night before (U.S.) Thanksgiving, the Flyers turned in a generally poor effort and deserved to lose. Only some late-game heroics by Danny Briere and subpar goaltending by New York's Rick DiPietro allowed the Flyers to overcome a 3-1 deficit and win 4-3 in overtime.
Andrej Meszaros scored early in the game on an unscreened long-distance slapshot on the rush. Scott Hartnell had the other tally for Philly. Kyle Okposo notched his first two goals of the season for the Islanders in that game.
The win extended the Flyers' incredible run against the Islanders. Philadelphia enters tonight's game having won seven in a row and 22 of the last 23 games against the Islanders. Over that span, the Flyers have prevailed in 11 of the last 12 games played on Long Island. Many of the games, however, have been close calls for the Flyers.
The Flyers have won three of four games since their Winter Classic collapse against the Rangers but continued to struggle holding leads until successfully protecting a 2-1 lead in the third period of Tuesday's game against Carolina. In that match, Sergei Bobrovsky provided outstanding goaltending and the Flyers got goals from rookies Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier.
Tonight, Philly will look to get Claude Giroux and his line going again offensively. The trio of Giroux, Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr (two games) was kept off the scoreboard both in the home-and-home set against the Senators and in Carolina.
The Islanders are 5-5-0 in their last 10 games. They rebounded from road losses in Phoenix and Anaheim by returning home to paste the Detroit Red Wings, 5-1. John Tavares enters tonight's game riding a hot streak of 12 points in the last six games. In the meantime, Matt Moulson has racked up four goals and eight points over the last five games.
PROJECTED LINEUP (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
Talbot - Briere - Voracek
JVR - Schenn - Simmonds
Zolnierczyk - Couturier - Read
Timonen - Coburn
Carle - Bourdoun
Gustafsson - Meszaros
Bobrovsky/Bryzgalov
ISLANDERS
Moulson - Tavares - Okposo
Grabner - Bailey - Martin
Rolston - Nielsen - Parenteau
Wallace - Pandolfo - Niederreiter
Streit - Staios
MacDonald - Hamonic
Eaton - Jurcina
Nabokov
[Poulin]
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