UPDATE 4 PM
Matt Walker is in the lineup tonight for the Flyers. Kevin Marshall will sit. Also, Tom Sestito will make his Flyers regular season debut, replacing Jody Shelley in the lineup.
PREVIEW 6 AM EST
Looking to improve their league-best road record, the Flyers (20-8-3) begin a challenging slate of away games this week that will see the club play in three different time zones within five days. Tonight they are in the Mile High City to take on the Colorado Avalanche (15-17-1). The game starts at 9 PM EST (7 PM MST) and will be broadcast locally on Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia.
The game is the lone meeting between the clubs this season. Last year, the Flyers prevailed 4-2 over the Avs in the home opener at Wells Fargo Center.
In that tilt, the Avs battled back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game in the third period before now-former Flyer Jeff Carter's second goal of the game put Philly ahead to stay. Claude Giroux opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal, and ex-Flyer Darroll Powe closed it out with an empty netter. Sergei Bobrovsky made 25 saves for the victory. Brandon Yip and Milan Hejduk scored for the Avs.
Philly enters this game looking to move quickly past a humiliating 6-0 loss at home to the Bruins on Saturday night. The loss emphatically snapped the Flyers' seven-game winning streak. The club still has an intact five-game winning streak on the road.
Conversely, the Avalanche are happy to be coming home. The road has not been kind to the team of late. However, just before coming back to the Pepsi Center, Colorado snapped a nine-game road losing streak with a 2-1 win in Washington decided by defenseman Erik Johnson's first goal of the 2011-12 season. At home, the Avs are 9-9-0 this season and 5-5-0 over its last 10 overall games.
Ryan O'Reilly leads the Avalanche in scoring with 23 points (7 goals, 16 assists) but has just two points (1 G, 1 A) in the last six games after catching fire in late November and early December. Top goal scorer Matt Duchene (11 G, 11 A) recently snapped a seven-game goal scoring slump and has two goals in his last five games. Paul Stastny (10 G, 8A) remains arguably the team's best player and has three goals and four points in the last four games after a six-game stretch in which he recorded only one point.
The Flyers have taken too many penalties in their last two games after being much better in that department in the six preceding games. The club killed off eight of nine penalties in their 4-3 win in Montreal but got strafed for three power play goals on six attempts by the Bruins on Saturday. The power play is an area where the Avalanche have excelled this season, coming into tonight's game ranked third in the NHL at 21.7 percent efficiency.
Until the Boston game, the Flyers had been dominating games at 5-on-5 and the power play had been hot during the first five games of their winning streak. However, they've cooled off on the man advantage of late, and have dropped from 3rd in the NHL to 11th (18.6 percent efficiency). Obviously, the absence of Giroux (concussion) over the last three games has had a lot to do with it.
Neither Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov nor Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov have had much luck or success this season making saves when their clubs are on the penalty kill. On a leaguewide basis,
they rank 65th and 66th in PK save percentage (Bryz at .817, Varlamov at .816). Sergei Bobrovsky has a .900 save percentage with Philly on the penalty kill, while Jean-Sebastien Giguere is at .861.
Prior to the shut out and the hands of the Bruins, the Flyers hottest offensive players had been Scott Hartnell, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek and Jaromir Jagr. Those players, along with Danny Briere, will look to climb back on the horse tonight. Two Flyers in dire need of offensive breakout games are James van Riemsdyk and Matt Read.
JVR has been held pointless in six of his last seven games and has not scored a goal since returning to the lineup after suffering a small abdominal tear. Rookie standout Read, who will likely be moved from wing to center tonight with the Flyers racked by so many injuries, has not scored a goal in his last five games (he has two assists in that span) and has just two goals in the 11 games since his five-game goal scoring streak was snapped. However, Read has continued to play excellent hockey in other areas of the game.
Giroux skated with the team at practice yesterday but is still not ready to return to the lineup, at least for the time being. Brayden Schenn (concussion) also made the trip with the team to Colorado but did not practice yesterday: He had been skating last week until suffering a setback. Rookie center Sean Couturier, who was struck in the head by a Kimmo Timonen shot late in the first period of Saturday's game, was hospitalized overnight and then released Sunday. He will be re-evaluated today. The team has called forward Ben Holmstrom up from the Phantoms to fill in for Couturier.
The Flyers are likely to be without Chris Pronger (concussion) for the remainder of the regular season and playoffs. Andreas Lilja (high ankle sprain) has been recalled from a conditioning assignment with the Phantoms and is eligible to come off LTIR for Wednesday's game. Erik Gustafsson (wrist surgery) is getting close to returning.
The Avs have an extensive IR list of their own: Peter Mueller (concussion), Brandon Yip (groin), Ryan Wilson (head), Mark Olver (head) and Chuck Kobasew (head). In addition, Kyle Quincey and David Jones are questionable for tonight's game with groin injuries. Varlamov has experienced back spasms recently but is available to play tonight. Kevin Porter is eligible to play tonight after completing his four-game suspension.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Briere - Jagr
JVR - Talbot - Voracek
Read - Holmstrom - Simmonds
Shelley - Zolnierczyk - Rinaldo
Timonen - Coburn
Carle - Bourdon/Meszaros
Marshall/Bourdon - Meszaros
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
AVALANCHE
Duchene - Stastny - Winnik
Landeskog - O'Reilly - Hejduk
Galiardi - McClement - Malone
McLeod - Brophey - Van der Gulik
O'Brien - Johnson
Hejda - O'Byrne
Hunwick - Elliott
Varlamov/Giguere
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Congratulations to Flyers' prospect Marcel Noebels, whose German team earned a promotion back to the elite World Junior Championships after going undefeated at the 2012 Division 1 WJC.
Noebels ranked third in tournament scoring with 9 points (4 G, 5A) in five games.
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