PREVIEW: FLYERS VS. RED WINGS
Making a brief stop at home, Craig Berube's Philadelphia Flyers (28-27-14) play host to Mike Babcock's Detroit Red Wings (37-18-11) on Saturday afternoon. Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 1:00 p.m. EDT. The game will be televised on CSN Philadelphia.
This is the third and final meeting of the season between the teams, and the second game in Philadelphia. On Oct. 25, the host Flyers downed the Red Wings by a 4-2 count. On Nov. 26 at Joe Louis Arena, the Wings breezed to a 5-2 victory.
For the Flyers, this game marks the front end of back-to-back games and, after an idle night on Friday, the middle segment of a three-in-four. The Flyers had a road game in St. Louis on Thursday and will travel to Ottawa for a game on Sunday.
The Red Wings are in an identical pattern. The club hosted the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday. On Sunday, they have a road game in Pittsburgh.
Flyers outlook
The Flyers are 0-2-2 in their last four games and have fallen hopelessly out of the Eastern Conference playoff race. Philly has only scored three or more regulation goals in three of its last 14 games.
On Thursday, Steve Mason blanked the St. Louis Blues on 35 shots for 65 minutes but the Flyers themselves could not muster a single goal. The Blues ultimately prevailed in a two-round shootout.
Thursday night's game marked the second time during the 2014-15 season in which Mason was credited with a shutout but did not earn a win. He also had it happen on Nov. 24 in Uniondale against the New York Islanders. Mason has joined Pekka Rinne (2009-10 Nashville Predators) and Marty Turco (2008-09 Dallas Stars) as the third NHL goaltender to have two shutout/shootout loss on his record in the same season.
Forward R.J. Umberger has been scratched the last two games. Originally deemed a healthy scratch, it turned out that the player has abdominal and hip issues and will not play again this season after undergoing surgery that will require approximately 10 weeks of rehabilition. Defenseman Michael Del Zotto sustained an upper-body injury in the first period of the March 7th game in Boston. He is expected to miss seven-to-10 days.
Red Wings outlook
The Red Wings are 2-3-0 thus far in March. Overall the team is sitting in third place in the Atlantic Division and is comfortably ensconced in playoff position.
A first period power play goal by Justin Abdelkader got the Wings off to a quick start against the Blue Jackets on Thursday but they could not solve Sergei Bobrovsky (41 saves) again despite a barrage of shots. Jimmy Howard stopped 23 of 26 shots in a losing cause for Detroit.
Entering play on Saturday, Pavel Datsyuk leads the Red Wings with 23 goals and is tied with Henrik Zetterberg for the overall scoring lead with 56 points. Datyuk has only played 55 games this season to the 62 games that Zetterberg has played. Zetterberg leads the team with 41 assists. In addition to Datsyuk, Tomas Tatar (25 goals, 48 points) and Gustav Nyquist (22 goals, 47 points) have also surpassed the 20-goal mark this season.
On the Detroit injury front, Tomas Jurco is out of the lineup with an eye injury suffered as the result of an errant high stick. Alexey Marchenko is on injured reserve with a strained oblique muscle while Darren Helm is day-to-day. Backup goaltender Jonas Gustavsson has a suspected concussion. Veteran forward Johan Franzén (upper body) is on injured reserve.
Key team stat comparisons (NHL overall ranking)
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.54 (T-21st), Red Wings 2.88 (8th) Non-shootout goals against per game: Flyers 2.75 (T-22nd), Red Wings 2.52 (T-11th) Even strength Goals For/Against Ratio: Flyers 0.97 (20th), Red Wings 1.06 (15th) Power play efficiency: Flyers 22.0% (4th), Red Wings 25.2% (1st) Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 76.7% (28th), Red Wings 81.7% (13th) Faceoff percentage: Flyers 51.6% (T-9th), Red Wings 52.8% (4th)
Projected lineups (Subject to change, will be updated)
FLYERS
10 Brayden Schenn - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek 24 Matt Read - 14 Sean Couturier - 17 Wayne Simmonds 36 Zac Rinaldo - 12 Michael Raffl - 25 Ryan White 76 Chris VandeVelde - 78 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 40 Vincent Lecavalier
55 Nick Schultz - 32 Mark Streit 26 Carlo Colaiacovo - 22 Luke Schenn 8 Nicklas Grossmann - 47 Andrew MacDonald
35 Steve Mason [29 Ray Emery]
Scratches: R.J. Umberger (hip/abdominal surgery), Brandon Manning (healthy), Michael Del Zotto (upper body), Radko Gudas (IR, knee surgery).
RED WINGS
21 Tomas Tatar - 13 Pavel Datsyuk - 41 Luke Glendening 8 Justin Abdelkader - 40 Henrik Zetterberg - 72 Erik Cole 14 Gustav Nyquist - 15 Riley Sheahan - 56 Teemu Pulkkinen 20 Drew Miller - 18 Joakim Andersson - 11 Daniel Cleary or 90 Stephen Weiss
52 Jonathan Ericsson - 55 Niklas Kronwall 65 Dan DeKeyser - 27 Kyle Quincey 2 Brendan Smith - 28 Marek Zidlicky
35 Jimmy Howard [34 Petr Mrazek]
Scratches: Daniel Cleary or Stephen Weiss (healthy), Jakub Kindl (healthy), Johan Franzén (IR, upper body), Tomas Jurco (eye injury), Alexey Marchenko (IR, strained oblique), Darren Helm (day-to-day, strained oblique), Jonas Gustavsson (suspected concussion).