UPDATE 11:30 AM EDT
The Flyers will have Max Talbot, Pavel Kubina and Andreas Lilja back in the lineup tonight. Lineups are updated below.
PREVIEW 7:45 AM EDT
With 10 games remaining in the regular season, the Philadelphia Flyers (42-22-8) can only try to take their own business and let the chips fall where they may when it comes to playoff matchups. Tonight, the Flyers continue their five-game homestand when Kevin Dineen's Florida Panthers (35-23-13) come to the Wells Fargo Center. The game starts at 7:00 p.m. EDT and will be broadcast on CSN Philly.
This is the fourth and final meeting of the season between the teams. The Flyers have won all three games so far, capturing two wins in Florida by 3-2 scores, once in regulation and once via shootout. On March 8, Ilya Bryzgalov shut out the Panthers on 28 saves and a balanced Flyers attack produced a 5-0 victory.
The lopsided outcome of the last meeting between the teams as well as the emotion poured into the weekend games with the Bruins and Penguins make this game a potentially dangerous one for the Flyers. This is "just another" stretch drive game for the Flyers, while it's a measuring-stick game for the Panthers, who are trying to hold off the Washington Capitals for the third (rather than the eighth) seed in the Eastern Conference.
The first order of business for the Flyers tonight will be to try to get off to a good start. Even as they've been racking up points in nine of their last 11 games (8-2-1), the Flyers have not played with many early leads. They have been getting tremendous goaltending from Bryzgalov -- named NHL Player of the Week for the second straight week -- and playing gritty team defense. The offense, though, has run a bit hot-and-cold this month.
Florida was missing several key players, including leading scorer Kris Versteeg, when they came to town earlier this month. Versteeg and starting defenseman Dmitry Kulikov are back but Jack Skille (shoulder), Matt Bradley (upper body) and Scottie Upshall (sports hernia surgery) all remain on injured reserve.
The Panthers have played very good hockey in their right over the last two weeks. They have won four in a row heading into this game, and the club has been getting solid goaltending from veteran Jose Theodore. Although he did not fare well the last time he played the Flyers, Theodore has posted a 7-2-1 record and .928 save percentage over his past 10 starts.
In the season series to date, 10 different Flyers have scored at least one goal, with Brayden Schenn and Matt Read scoring two apiece. Mikael Samuelsson has tallied a pair of goals for the Panthers.
The Flyers did not practice yesterday, because they had just played three games in four days. They will have a morning skate in Voorhees today, where it will become clearer whether any among Max Talbot (shoulder), Pavel Kubina (upper body) to Andreas Lilja (throat) will be able to play tonight. The club will be without Andrej Meszaros (back) and James van Riemsdyk (foot) for the rest of the regular season.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
Wellwood - Briere - Voracek
Read- Schenn - Simmonds
Talbot - Couturier - Rinaldo
Carle - Timonen
Grossmann - Coburn
Lilja - Kubina
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
PANTHERS
Fleischmann - Weiss - Wolski
Kopecky - Matthias - Versteeg
Bergenheim - Goc - Samuelsson
Smithson - Madden - Sturm
Garrison - Campbell
Kulikov - Weaver
Gudbranson - Jovanovski
Theodore
[Clemmensen]
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