FLYERS VS BRUINS GAME PREVIEW (7:00 A.M. EDT)
Kicking off another brutally difficult week of games, the Philadelphia Flyers (39-27-7) finish the month of March with a home tilt against the Boston Bruins (51-17-6). Game time is 12:30 p.m. EDT. The match will be televised on nationally on NBC.
This is the second of three meetings between the teams, and the second and final game in Philadelphia. The teams will play twice over the next week, meeting in Boston next Saturday. To have a fighting chance at coming away with points from those games, the Flyers will need to play about 250 percent better than they did in the first game of the season series.
On Jan. 25, the visiting Bruins laid a merciless 6-1 whipping on the Flyers. The Bruins dominated all three periods.
Goals in the waning seconds of the first period by Jarome Iginla and early in the second period by Reilly Smith opened the floodgates for a blowout. Boston punished the Flyers' usually stellar penalty killing for three goals, as Zdeno Chara notched a pair of goals on the man advantage and Iginla added a power play goal to his earlier even strength goal. Patrice Bergeron also scored at even strength.
Claude Giroux notched a third-period power play goal for the Flyers' only tally of the day. Moments later, Nicklas Grossmann (punctuating the worst game and the worst month of his entire NHL career) received a high-sticking double minor. Boston scored on both halves of the ensuing power play.
Steve Mason started in net, and was basically left to fend for himself as the Bruins attacked his net at will. He was pulled at 13:10 of the second period after yielding four goals on 19 shots. Ray Emery came in and fared little better, turning back 12 of 14 shots. Winning goaltender Tuukka Rask was tested a bit early in the match but not much thereafter, and finished the game with 25 saves.
After today's game against the Eastern Conference leaders, the Flyers travel to St. Louis on Tuesday to take on the Western Conference leading Blues. Having beaten the Blues in Philadelphia last weekend, the Flyers will have to churn out a virtually spotless game to defeat St. Louis on their home ice.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
The thrashing at the hands of the Bruins on Jan. 25 was a bit of a wakeup call to the Flyers. On the following day, before the annual Flyers Wives Carnival at the Wells Fargo Center, the club held a skating-intensive and rather lengthy practice in Voorhees. Head coach Craig Berube and his players talked about the need to get back to doing the things the club had been doing well in mid-November and for the majority of a six-game road trip after Christmas.
Starting with a home game against Detroit on Jan. 28, the Flyers have gone 14-5-1 over their last 20 games. They are 9-4-1 after the Olympic break and 9-3-1 in March.
On Friday night, the Flyers snapped a two-game losing streak with 4-2 home win over the free-falling Toronto Maple Leafs. Claude Giroux led the way with a goal and two assists. Philly got power play goals from Vincent Lecavalier (5-on-3) and Scott Hartnell and an even strength goal by Wayne Simmonds put the game away. Steve Mason made 32 saves.
The Flyers changed three of their four forward lines in Friday's game. Most notably, Lecavalier was moved down from second line left wing to fourth line center. Tye McGinn skated on the left wing of Brayden Schenn's line. Michael Raffl moved up to Sean Couturier's line, with Matt Read playing the left wing.
After winning a run of games against top-notch opposition -- Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis -- the Flyers got away from that in losses to Los Angeles and the New York Rangers. First and foremost, Philadelphia got outnumbered around the puck and lost most of the key battles in long stretches of the game. The game against Toronto was by no means spotless, but was a step back in the right direction.
Offense has generally not been a problem for the Flyers since their early-season struggles to put the puck in the net. Through the first 15 games of the season, the Flyers scored just 22 goals (1.47 per game). Since that time, Philly has tallied 184 goals in 57 games (3.23 per game).
No player in the NHL has been hotter offensively than Giroux has over the last several months. The Flyers captain has 41 points (14 goals and 27 assists) in the 32 games played since January 4, which was the first game after the last time he was held pointless in back-to-back games.
In the first five games after the Olympic break, the Flyers yielded 21 goals. However, they have allowed just 18 in the last nine games. The goaltending of Mason and Ray Emery has generally been strong.
Steve Downie (upper body injury, suspected concussion) remains sidelined. Several other players, including Nicklas Grossmann (foot), are playing through injuries that may have sidelined them for a time if they happened earlier in the season. Without a playoff spot assured yet, it's all hands on deck.
BRUINS OUTLOOK
While the Flyers have played very well overall since the last time they played the Bruins, it pales in comparison to the way Boston has steamrolled the opposition. Over their last 24 games, the Bruins are 19-2-3. Even more impressively, the Bruins are 14-0-1 in their last 15 matches. If the NHL regular season ended today, the Bruins would win the President's Trophy.
Boston matches up well to virtually every team in the NHL, and they have won their share of lopsided games against the Flyers ever since Philly's miraculous comeback in the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals. The Bruins are an excellent two-way team with skill, plenty of grit and very solid goaltending.
Boston rarely loses battles along the walls, and a major part of the reason why Philly added so much size to their blueline since getting swept by Boston in the 2011 Eastern Conference semis was the way the Bruins' top line utterly manhandled Philly in the Flyers' defensive trenches.
When the teams last played, the Bruins were coming off a four-day break in the schedule. The strategic hope for the Flyers was that perhaps Boston would not be sharp early in the game and perhaps Philly could get a quick jump on them. That actually did happen -- but only for the first four-plus minutes of the opening period. Thereafter, Boston hit its stride and dismantled Philly.
This time around, the Bruins are playing the second half of back-to-back games. It is Boston's 16th and final game in the month of March -- an even busier slate than the Flyers have played. However, they have not been playing like a fatigued team. If Philly is hoping the Bruins suffer a letdown after clinching the Atlantic Division championship yesterday afternoon with a win over Washington, the Flyers had better be prepared to make it happen. Boston won't hand them any gifts.
Yesterday afternoon, the Bruins compiled a workmanlike 4-2 road win over the Capitals. Two second period goals by Iginla -- who hit the 30-goal plateau for the 12th time in his distinguished career -- were sandwiched around a tally by Carl Söderberg to build a 3-0 lead. In the third period, Patrice Bergeron notched his 26th goal of the season.
With the Flyers game looming today, Boston coach Claude Julien tabbed backup netminder Chad Johnson to get the start in goal against the Capitals. Johnson made 31 saves to earn the win. A Washington goal in the final minute of play was meaningless apart from making the final score 4-2 instead of 4-1. Tuukka Rask will return to the net today.
Former Flyers defenseman Andrej Meszaros was a healthy scratch for two games for Boston. He returned to the lineup yesterday, skating 21:09.
Boston has dealt with a host of injuries this season -- mainly on the blueline -- but has kept right on winning. Most notably, ex-Flyers defenseman Dennis Seidenberg remains sidelined after undergoing knee surgery.
Nothing better underscores the difficulty of playing the Bruins than this: Boston comes into today's game with the best goals against average in the NHL, and is ranked third in goal production.
The Bruins are the NHL's best team at five-on-five, which means they are less susceptible to the ups-and-downs of special teams that all teams (including themselves) experience. As for their special teams work, Boston ranks near the top of the NHL both in power play and penalty killing efficiency.
Bottom line: Whatever the complexion of a game, the Bruins have the weapons to win. The Flyers have their work cut out for them.
KEY STAT COMPARISONS (NHL OVERALL RANKING)
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.84 (10th), Bruins 3.18 (3rd)
Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.75 (17th), Bruins 2.04 (1st)
Even strength Goals For/Against Ratio: Flyers 0.96 (16th), Bruins 1.61 (1st)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 19.9% (9th), Bruins 20.8% (3rd)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 85.1% (5th), Bruins 84.0% (8th)
Faceoff percentage: Flyers 50.1% (16th), Bruins 52.2% (6th)
PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)
FLYERS
19 Scott Hartnell - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
15 Tye McGinn - 10 Brayden Schenn - 17 Wayne Simmonds
24 Matt Read- 14 Sean Couturier - 12 Michael Raffl
36 Zac Rinaldo - 40 Vincent Lecavalier - 18 Adam Hall
44 Kimmo Timonen - 5 Braydon Coburn
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 32 Mark Streit
47 Andrew MacDonald - 22 Luke Schenn
35 Steve Mason
[29 Ray Emery]
Potential Scratches: Steve Downie (upper body), Erik Gustafsson (healthy), Jay Rosehill (healthy), Hal Gill (healthy), Chris Pronger (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).
BRUINS
17 Milan Lucic - 46 David Krejci - 12 Jarome Iginla
63 Brad Marchand - 37 Patrice Bergeron - 18 Reilly Smith
23 Chris Kelly - 34 Carl Söderberg - 21 Loui Eriksson
20 Daniel Paille - 11 Gregory Campbell - 22 Shawn Thornton
33 Zdeno Chara - 27 Dougie Hamilton
55 Johnny Boychuk - 41 Andrej Meszaros
86 Kevan Miller - 47 Torey Krug
40 Tuukka Rask
[30 Chad Johnson]
Potential Scratches: Matt Bartkowski (healthy), Jordan Caron (healthy), Corey Potter (healthy), Adam McQuad (strained quadriceps), Dennis Seidenberg (IR, knee surgery), Marc Savard (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).
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