FLYERS-CANADIENS GAME PREVIEW (3:15 AM EST)
Returning home from a 2-3-1 road trip and playing for the third time in four nights, the Philadelphia Flyers (13-15-3) will take on the Montreal Canadiens (19-10-3) at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night. Game time is 7:00 p.m. EST. The match will be televised locally on CSN Philly and in French in Canada on RDS.
This is the second of three meetings between the teams this season, and the first of two in Philadelphia. On Wed., Jan. 8, the Habs will return to town for the rubber match of the season series.
Back on Oct. 5, the second game of the regular season and the penultimate game of the Peter Laviolette coaching regime, the visiting Flyers got dominated in a 4-1 road loss in Montreal. Ray Emery held the game close for two periods, keeping the deficit to 1-0. The Canadiens pulled away in the third period. Vincent Lecavalier scored his first regular season goal as a Flyer for the lone Philadelphia tally. Brian Gionta, Lars Eller, Brendan Gallagher and Rene Bourque (empty net) scored for Montreal.
The Flyers' sojourn at home is brief. They head to Washington over the weekend for a road date on Sunday with the Capitals and then return to the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday to complete a home-and-home with Adam Oates' club.
FLYERS OUTLOOK
The Flyers stumbled through the final three games of their six-game road trip, and have yielded 18 goals over the last four games. Last night in Chicago, the Flyers were embarrassed by a 7-2 count on a night where they simply could not stop the bleeding against the highest-scoring team in the NHL.
Just as in the Flyers' 5-1 loss in Dallas on Saturday, things went fine for Philly in the opening period in Chicago last night. Thereafter, the wheels fell off the wagon.
The Flyers outshot the Blackhawks by a 10-6 count in the first period and skated off to the locker room with a 1-0 lead. The final 40 minutes saw the Hawks -- who had laid a 6-2 whipping on the Stars the previous night -- use their speed and precision puck movement to pick the Flyers apart. Compounding the problem was the fact that the Flyers abetted Chicago in the process by losing their discipline.
Emery, who gave up six goals on just 18 shots, had no chance on at least four of the Chicago tallies. Steve Mason yielded one goal in five shots worth of third period mopup work. The previous night, the Blackhawks gave similarly rough treatment to Dallas starter Kari Lehtonen and backup Dan Ellis.
There is no word as of this writing on whether Flyers' second-line center Brayden Schenn will face supplementary discipline for a high hit in the second period of last night's game. He was not penalized on the play and it did not cause injury but it was still a dangerous and needlessly high hit.
Heading into tonight's game, the Flyers rank 11th in the NHL on the penalty kill (83.3 percent) and 15th on the power play (18.1 percent). Last night, they went 5-for-7 on penalty kills and 2-for-5 on the power play with a backbreaking shorthanded goal allowed. Jakub Voracek and Steve Downie notched goals on the man advantage in the first and second periods respectively.
Mason is likely to return to net tonight for the Flyers. Has has yielded four goals apiece in each of his last two starts after having not yielded more than three in any game of his Flyers career prior to that.
On the injury front, Lecavalier (non-displaced fracture in his lower back) remains out of the Flyers lineup.
CANADIENS OUTLOOK
The Canadiens bring an 8-4-1 road record on the season into tonight's game. Overall, the Canadiens have won eight of its last 10 games but is coming off a 6-0 loss at home to the Los Angeles Kings.
Teams that attack with speed often tend to give the Flyers problems, but the Flyers are 5-0-0 in their last five home games against the Habs and 8-3-0 overall in the last 11 meetings.
However, Philly had issues coping with the Habs' better skaters in the first meeting of the season series this year. The Canadiens were actually riddled with injuries at that time, but it made little difference in the outcome of the game.
Montreal has done well on the power play thus far in the 2013-14 campaign. The Habs rank 6th in the NHL on the man advantage, clocking in at a 21.9 percent success ratio to date. The penalty kill has been quite good, too. At 85.7 percent efficiency, the Canadiens rank 6th in the league on the PK and have also scored four shorthanded goals (tied for third in the circuit to date).
The Habs feature a balanced attack. Defending Norris Trophy winning defenseman P.K. Subban leads the club in overall scoring with 24 points (four goals, 20 assists) to date, but there are a dozen players with 10 or more points through the first 32 games of the season. Additionally, eight players have scored five or more goals, led by Tomas Plekanec (22 points) and Max Pacioretty (14 points) with 11 tallies apiece.
Tonight's game marks the first time longtime Flyers fan favorite Daniel Briere will play in the Wells Fargo Center since being bought out by Philly over the summer. Limited to 22 games by a concussion, Briere has five goals and 10 points to date. He is pointless in his last three games coming into tonight and has just one goal and two assists in his last nine.
Carey Price played just 25:25 of the Habs' debacle against the Kings, yielding four goals on 16 shots. Prior to that, he had been on a run of 10 consecutive starts in which he had not allowed more than two goals in a game. For his NHL career, Price has appeared in 16 regular season games against the Flyers, posting an 8-8-0 record, 2.70 GAA, .916 save percentage and a pair of shutouts.
On the Montreal injury front, Rene Bourque and Davis Drewiske are both currently on IR.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)
FLYERS
19 Scott Hartnell - 28 Claude Giroux - 92 Jakub Voracek
12 Michael Raffl - 10 Brayden Schenn - 17 Wayne Simmonds
24 Matt Read - 14 Sean Couturier - 9 Steve Downie
37 Jay Rosehill - 18 Adam Hall - 36 Zac Rinaldo
44 Kimmo Timonen - 5 Braydon Coburn
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 32 Mark Streit
41 Andrej Meszaros - 22 Luke Schenn
35 Steve Mason
[29 Ray Emery]
Potential Scratches: Tye McGinn (healthy), Vincent Lecavalier (back injury), Erik Gustafsson (healthy), Hal Gill (healthy), Chris Pronger (LTIR, post-concussion syndrome).
CANADIENS
67 Max Pacioretty - 51 David Desharnais - 11 Brendan Gallagher
27 Alex Galchenyuk - 14 Tomas Plekanec - 21 Brian Gionta
8 Brandon Prust - 81 Lars Eller - 48 Daniel Briere
32 Travis Moen - 53 Ryan White - 49 Michael Bournival
79 Andrei Markov - 76 P.K. Subban
26 Josh Gorges - 74 Alexei Emelin
55 Francis Bouillon - 61 Raphael Diaz
31 Carey Price
[30 Peter Budaj]
Possible scratches: Douglas Murray (healthy), George Parros (healthy), Rene Bourque (IR, lower body), Davis Drewiske (IR, shoulder surgery).
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