PREVIEW (11:30 AM)

Coming off a convincing win on Saturday afternoon against the hapless Carolina Hurricanes, the Flyers (6-4-1) are back in action tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning (4-3-4). The Bolts, who are coming off a 2-1 shootout loss to the Devils, always seem to give the Flyers a tough time regardless of their record or recent play.

The Flyers will attempt to build on the positives they established against Carolina. It would be a big help, though, if at least one of Jeff Carter, Mike Richards or Claude Giroux put one in the net tonight. The team's supporting cast has been doing its part, now it's time for the nucleus forwards to step up. I suspect that Carter will have a breakout game tonight. Ray Emery will get his 11th start of the year in goal tonight.

For Tampa, Vincent LeCavalier has been in coach Rick Tocchet's doghouse of late. Tocchet recently laced into the entire club for lacking grit and losing focus and specifically mentioned LeCavalier as a player who is letting an offensive slump carry over the rest of his game. It will be interesting to see how he responds tonight.

Tampa no longer has several of its longtime Flyer killers on the roster. It always seemed like some combination of Vaclav Prospal, Ruslan Fedotenko and Dan Boyle would scored backbreaking goals in games against Philly. Nevertheless, the Flyers still need to be keenly aware of Martin St. Louis, who has also feasted off Philly throughout his career. St. Louis will line up with Steven Stamkos and Ryan Malone. Tonight's tilt will also provide Flyers fans with their first look at highly touted rookie defenseman Victor Hedman.

While ex-Flyer Antero Niittymaki would seem to be the better candidate to start tonight's game in goal, Tocchet has already announced it will be Mike Smith. The big goalie performed well against the Flyers last year, but is off to a mediocre start this season. However, Niitty is coming off a tremendous game against the Devils and would have plenty of motivation against his former team.

By the way, I don't suggest that anyone would dare ask Tocchet what the odds are that Steve Downie and Dan Carcillo will fight tonight. I'd be surprised if they didn't.

STARTING LINEUP (subject to change)

FLYERS

Hartnell - Richards - Giroux
JVR - Carter - Asham
Carcillo - Betts - Laperriere
Powe - Pyorala- Laliberte

Carle - Pronger
Coburn - Timonen
Tollefsen - Syvret

Emery
[Boucher]


Lightning

Malone - Stamkos - St. Louis
Wright - Halpern - Tanguay
Miller - LeCavalier - Veilleux
Fedoruk - Konopka - Downie

Ohlund - Hedman
Meszaros - Walker
Foster - Hale

Smith
[Niittymaki]

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