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Flyers Gameday: 4/5/14 @ Boston

April 5, 2014, 6:54 AM ET [726 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
FLYERS AT BRUINS GAME PREVIEW (6:45 A.M. EDT)

Looking to snap a three-game winless streak and going up against the best team in the NHL right now, the Philadelphia Flyers (39-28-9) are in Beantown to take on the Boston Bruins (52-18-7). Game time is 1:00 p.m. EDT. The match will be televised locally on Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia.

This is the third and final meeting of the season between the teams, and the lone game in Boston. On Jan. 25, the Bruins brutalized the Flyers by a 6-1 count. On March 30, Vincent Lecavalier's game-tying goal in the final minute of regulation forged a 3-3 tie. Boston prevailed in a shootout to take the extra point from the game.

After today's game, the Flyers return home to take on the Buffalo Sabres tomorrow. Thereafter, they are on the road until the final game of the regular season.

FLYERS OUTLOOK

Perspectives can change in a hurry in hockey. Heading into Thursday's game against Columbus, the Flyers were coming off hard-fought one-point games against the league-leading Bruins (home) and St. Louis Blues (away). They had a chance to gain ground on the New York Rangers and put the Columbus Jackets far in the rearview mirror.

Instead, the Flyers got shut out, 2-0. So now the storyline shifts to the Flyers having been shut out in back-to-back games and having a 1-3-2 record in their last six games.

In their defeats, the Flyers scored two third-period goals against Los Angeles (3-2 loss), one meaningless late third period goal against the New York Rangers (3-1 loss), three goals on 52 shots against the Bruins (4-3 shootout loss), got blanked on 31 shots by St. Louis (1-0 shootout loss) before Sergei Bobrovsky and Columbus shut them out on 37 shots.

The bright side of the recent struggles to win: the Flyers have continued to play reasonably solid team defense and have gotten generally good goaltending. Yesterday at practice, head coach Craig Berube and several players stressed the importance of not getting away from solid work in their own end of the ice in an effort to push the offense a little more. Chances have been coming in most games.

Claude Giroux will look today to snap a three-game pointless streak. That is the longest he's been held off the scoresheet since opening the season without a point in the first five games. As the team's biggest offensive catalyst, if Giroux gets going, so will the team.

The Flyers also drag an 0-for-11 skid on the power play into today's game. The Flyers went 0-for-4 against Columbus, including three dreadful first-period power play against Columbus and an equally unfruitful late third-period power play with a chance to win in St. Louis.

Ray Emery will start in goal for the Flyers. Andy MacDonald and Wayne Simmonds took maintenance days at practice yesterday but are expected to play today. Steve Downie (concussion) participated fully in practice yesterday and is a game-day decision today. He skated on Brayden Schenn's line yesterday.

BRUINS OUTLOOK

This has not been the best of weeks for Boston, who have only the President's Trophy left to play for in the regular season. The lack of urgency was evident at times as the team lost 3-2 to Detroit on Wednesday and then staged a comeback to force overtime against Toronto the next night before dropping a 4-3 decision.

Tuukka Rask, who got Thursday night off with the Bruins in the second half of back-to-back games and the second segment of a three-in-four, will be back in goal today.

Ex-Flyer Andrej Meszaros, who scored for Boston against the Flyers last weekend, was a healthy scratch last game after a tough night in the Red Wings game. He may be back in the Boston lineup today.

KEY STAT COMPARISONS (NHL OVERALL RANKING)

Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.76 (10th), Bruins 3.16 (3rd)
Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.71 (17th), Bruins 2.09 (1st)
Even strength Goals For/Against Ratio: Flyers 0.95 (16th), Bruins 1.60 (1st)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 19.1% (10th), Bruins 20.9% (3rd)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 84.8% (5th), Bruins 84.2% (7th)
Faceoff percentage: Flyers 50.2% (16th), Bruins 51.9% (7th)

PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)

FLYERS

19 Scott Hartnell - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
9 Steve Downie - 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

29 Ray Emery
[35 Steve Mason]

Potential Scratches: Tye McGinn (healthy scratch if Downie plays), 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 - 43 Matt Bartkowski
86 Kevan Miller - 47 Torey Krug or 41 Andrej Meszaros

40 Tuukka Rask
[30 Chad Johnson]

Potential Scratches: Torey Krug or Andrej Meszaros (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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