7:00p ET, Wells Fargo Center
The City of Brotherly Love, Pennsylvania
TV: Fox Sports Detroit
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Flyers Blogs: Broad Street Hockey
I think I have finally came down from the thriller of a game against Pittsburgh on Thursday. That was awesome. I mean, we should not have won, but damn that was cool as hell. Next up on the chopping-block are the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Flyers are a team who aren’t the greatest of teams, but for some reason they win games off of unicorns and fairy dust. I guess that’s what you get when you turn away superstars like Dan Cleary., Detroit has been absolutely abysmal against this team when they play in Philly’s barn. So I think we’re due for a win there.
We’ve seen the top-line on our team dominate as of late, and in order to win this game, I think it’s time we start having some scoring from the bottom-nine players. Tomas Tatar and Riley Sheahan are well overdue to fire up. Philadelphia is one of those teams who has a lot of depth down the middle, and third line center Sean Couturier is known to dominate that competition. Is this game winnable? Yes it is.. But Philly shouldn’t be written off. Claude Giroux is one of the better players in the world, and his line with Jakub Voracek has a lot of potency. I like this matchup a lot because of how thin Philly is on their blue-line. Corsi-superstar Andrew MacDonald is scratched, so that kinda sucks.. But if you compare our defense to their defense, you can see that Detroit is a bit better off. I’m looking for Niklas Kronwall to continue his hot-streak, and become a driving force for this team on all 200 feet of the ice, and Jonas Gustavsson to come out and make some big saves. I’ll tell you this much, it’s a 7pm puck drop.. So I’m weary of one of those classic Detroit slow-starts. Come out hungry. You sent Pittsburgh home devastated, let’s hang these dummies up by their ugly orange jerseys in their own house after giving them a big ol’ swirly.
The Expected Lineups
Forwards
| Henrik Zetterberg | Pavel Datsyuk | Justin Abdelkader |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
| Tomas Jurco | Darren Helm | Andrej Nestrasil |
| Joakim Andersson | Luke Glendening | Drew Miller |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Brendan Smith | Danny DeKeyser |
| Kyle Quincey | Jakub Kindl |
Goaltenders
| Jonas Gustavsson (starting) |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Daniel Cleary, Stephen Weiss & Brian Lashoff
Injuries: Johan Franzen (leg, groin, or something)
Forwards
| Michael Raffl | Claude Giroux | Jakub Voracek |
| Braden Schenn | Pierre-Édouard Bellemare | Wayne Simmonds |
| R.J. Umberger | Sean Couturier | Matt Read |
| Blair Jones | Chris VandeVelde | Jason Akeson |
Defensemen
| Nicklas Grossmann | Mark Streit |
| Michael Del Zotto | Luke Schenn |
| Nick Schultz | Mark Alt |
Goaltenders
| Ray Emery (Starting) |
| Steve Mason |
Bullets of Knowledge
- The Red Wings are 13-38-11 all-time in the regular season on the road against the Flyers.
- Since 1997, Detroit has been outscored in Philadelphia 33-13.
- Henrik Zetterberg 16 career regular season points against the Flyers./
