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Flyers Gameday: 10/24/13 vs. Rangers

October 24, 2013, 4:57 AM ET [1031 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
GAME PREVIEW (5:00 AM EDT)

Two teams that have had horrid months of October will meet up at the Wells Fargo Center tonight when the Philadelphia Flyers (1-7-0) take on the rival New York Rangers (2-5-0). Both clubs are coming off lengthy breaks in the schedule. Philadelphia last played one week ago, losing 4-1 at home to the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Rangers suffered a 4-0 road defeat at the hands of the New Jersey Devils on Saturday.

The Flyers have dropped each of their last four games after winning the first match of the Craig Berube era. The Rangers, now under the auspices of former Vancouver Canucks coach Alain Vigneault, have dropped four of their last five.

Game time at the Wells Fargo Center tonight is 7 p.m. eastern. The match will be televised on CSN Philadelphia in the Delaware Valley and MSG Network in the New York market.

This is the first of five meetings between the teams this season. The Flyers are 2-10-1 in their last 13 games against the Blueshirts.

After tonight, the Flyers will head to Long Island on Saturday to take on the Islanders.

FLYERS OUTLOOK

With a week-long break in the schedule, Berube has put the team through training camp like conditions at practice. There has been a lot conditioning skating, followed by systems work as well as at least one post-practice team meeting. The coach has said that his main goal is to get everyone to "skate quicker and think quicker" on the ice.

The team will feature different forward line combinations tonight than the ones that appeared in the game against Pittsburgh. Most notably, Vincent Lecavalier is set to return to the lineup after missing four games with a lower-body injury (suspected to be a groin pull). He will move from centering the second line to playing right wing on Claude Giroux's line. Jakub Voracek has shifted to the second line right wing spot.

The other major change that the Flyers will employ tonight is that Kimmo Timonen has been moved from the first to second power play unit. Fellow veteran Mark Streit has rotated to the top unit in his place.

No matter what the line combinations look like, the Flyers need to correct three glaring issues that have plagued them through most or all of their eight games to date:

1) The Flyers power play has scored just once since the second game of the season. In the broader picture, Philly has struggled to put the puck in the net in any manpower scenario. They have scored just 11 goals through eight games. Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Sean Couturier, Matt Read (zero points), injured forward Scott Hartnell (no points in five games), and defensemen Timonen and Streit are among the players who have yet to score their first goal of the season. Last game, Wayne Simmonds notched a power play goal for his first tally of the regular season.

2) Bad third periods have plagued the team. The Flyers have entered all eight third periods this season anywhere from one goal ahead (twice), tied (once) or trailing by just one goal (five times). The Flyers were in position to come away with one or two points in each and every game if they won the final 20 minutes. Instead, they have been outscored 12-2. Philly actually outplayed Pittsburgh in the third period of last Thursday's game -- after getting dominated by the Penguins in the middle stanza -- but still got outscored 2-0 in the final stanza.

3) The team has not made many defensive mistakes thus far, especially at five on five. Breakouts, puck management and coverages have been better than last year, especially in the games since Berube took over as head coach. Nevertheless the mistakes that have happened have been pretty egregious, and many have ended up in the back of the net.

With Lecavalier returning the lineup tonight, the Flyers have sent Kris Newbury to the AHL's Adirondack Phantoms. Hartnell is getting close to being ready to return but skated with the scratches and took extra skating at practice this week; an indication that he is not quite there yet physically.

Another lineup regular who took extra skating this week was defenseman Luke Schenn. The player has received the least average ice time per game among the team's blueliners who have dressed for games this season. With Berube heavily emphasizing improved skating throughout the team, Schenn requested extra skating after practice.

RANGERS OUTLOOK

With Madison Square Garden undergoing renovations, the Rangers have begun the 2013-14 season on a grueling nine-game road trip that has taken the club from coast to coast. Tonight's game marks the seventh match of the trip. The Rangers will not play their home opener until Monday, Oct. 28.

The bad news for the Rangers is that the road trip has not gone well thus far. A stellar defensive team under former coach John Tortorella, the Rangers have had their share of breakdowns in the early going of this season. New York has already been scored against 29 times through the first seven games, while their offense (seven goals) has been nearly as anemic as Philly's. Brad Richards leads the club with four tallies and seven points.

New York has been bitten numerous times by the injury bug off late. Superstar goaltender Henrik Lundqvist (undisclosed injury), top forward Rick Nash (concussion) and team captain Ryan Callahan (broken left thumb) are all out for tonight's game.

In the absence of Lundqvist, Cam Talbot is slated to get his first NHL regular season start. He will oppose Philadelphia's Steve Mason, who has started six of the first eight games.

The good news for the Blueshirts (and Flyers) is that no team in the Metropolitan Division with the exception of the first-place Penguins (7-2-0) is off to a winning start. The one-point games for overtime and shootout losses are the primary source of distance between the second to eighth place teams thus far.

The second-place Carolina Hurricanes have won four of nine games (4-2-3). The third-place Islanders have won three of nine games (3-3-3). The fourth-place Blue Jackets (4-5-0) and fifth-place Capitals (4-5-0) have each won four of nine (4-5-0). The sixth-place New Jersey Devils (1-5-3) got their lone win in nine tries when they beat the Rangers last weekend.

The Rangers have played the fewest games of any team in the Metro. In terms of the standings, if the team can close out its season opening road trip with a couple wins, it will be in decent shape with 41 of its remaining 71 games being played at home.


PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS (Subject to change)

FLYERS

12 Michael Raffl - 28 Claude Giroux - 40 Vincent Lecavalier
15 Tye McGinn - 10 Brayden Schenn - 93 Jakub Voracek
24 Matt Read - 14 Sean Couturier - 17 Wayne Simmonds
18 Adam Hall - 25 Max Talbot - 36 Zac Rinaldo

44 Kimmo Timonen - 26 Erik Gustafsson
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 5 Braydon Coburn
32 Mark Streit - 22 Luke Schenn

35 Steve Mason
[29 Ray Emery]

Scratches: Jay Rosehill (healthy), Andrej Meszaros (healthy), Hal Gill (healthy), Scott Hartnell (upper-body), Chris Pronger (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).

RANGERS

20 Chris Kreider - 21 Derek Stepan - 19 Brad Richards
67 Benoit Pouliot - 16 Derick Brassard - 10 J.T. Miller
14 Taylor Pyatt - 22 Brian Boyle - 12 Jesper Fast
40 Brandon Mashinter - 28 Dominic Moore - 15 Derek Dorsett

27 Ryan McDonagh - 5 Dan Girardi
18 Marc Staal - 6 Anton Strålman
17 John Moore - 4 Michael Del Zotto

33 Cam Talbot
[31 Jason Missaen]

Scratches: Mats Zuccarello (healthy), Ryan Callahan (broken left thumb), Henrik Lundqvist (undisclosed), Rick Nash (concussion), Carl Hagelin (left shoulder surgery).


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