Minnesota Wild at Philadelphia Flyers: Game Preview

The Wild are in Philadelphia tonight for the final game before the holiday break to take on the Flyers.   The Wild are on the second night of a back to back, having played last night in New York where the Flyers have had a day of rest.    Both teams (and starting goaltenders) are coming off of losses, so the compete factor should be high in this one.

This game is being nationally televised on the NBC Sports Network as well as CSN-PH at 6:30 PM tonight.   Radio broadcasts can be found on KFAN 100.3 and wild.nhl.com.

Stephane Veilluex has been recalled for tonight's game; Erik Haula has been sent back to Iowa.   Veilluex will play on the fourth line.  Yeo has been tightlipped about his lines for tonight.  It has been confirmed that Clayton Stoner will be out tonight with a lower body injury and Nate Prosser will return to the lineup.  Josh Harding is, of course, stil out.   A guess on possible lines is (subject to change):

Parise-Coyle_Koivu

Niederreiter-Granlund-Pominville

Heatley-Brodziack-Cooke

Mitchell-Konopka-Veilleux

Suter-Brodin

Scandella-Spurgeon

Prosser-Ballard

Backstrom

Gustaffson

In the net for the Flyers tonight is Steve Mason, who, after a great start to the season (the record is not indicative of his play), is beginning to show a return back to average status.   The Flyers do have a 6-1-0 record against the Wild on home ice, but with Mason's return to human form, this could be winnable.

Erik Gustafsson is out with a knee sprain.  Steve Downie has an unspecified lower body injury; Downie has not had the greatest luck since his return to the Flyers in October.  Nicklas Grossman is questionable, having missed Saturday's game in Columbus with the flu.

Potential lines for the Flyers look like:

Raffl-Giroux-Voracek

Hartnell-B. Schenn-Simmonds

Read-Couturier-Lecavalier

Rinaldo-Hall-VandeVelde

Timonen-Coburn

Grossman-Streit

L. Schenn-Meszaros

Mason

Emery

The Flyers have given up only one goal in the penalty kill in their last 5 home games, so the Wild are really going to need to step up their power play if they want to score on the man advantage.

Tonight's game features two struggling goalies.  Since the firing of Peter Laviolette and the hire of Craig Berube, the Flyers have slowly begun to pull together and support their goaltender.  There's not always that in front of Nik Backstrom.   Tonight should be interesting.