Flyers Back at it with Canadiens

After losing their sixth straight game yesterday to the Canadiens, 1-0, the Flyers will have a chance to redeem themselves in a rematch today in Philly. Offensively, nothing is clicking for the Flyers right now. They can't score at even strength, so if teams can stay out of the penalty box, they have a good chance to beat the Flyers. You can't blame yesterday's loss on goaltender Antero Niitymaki, who played well and only let in one spectacular goal by Andrei Kostitsyn:


*Injury update Talk about getting kicked while your down. The Flyers will be without the services of Joffrey Lupul again, as he had a high ankle sprain against the Canadiens. That makes two high scoring wingers, Lupul and Simon Gagne, on the mend. Steve Downie also will be out of tonights game with an upper body injury. Scottie Upshall returned to the ice yesterday, and should be fine going forward. Two defensemen, Braydon Coburn and Derian Hatcher, will probably be back in the lineup for todays game.

*Greentree down, Tolpeko up Kyle Greentree has been sent down and called up several times in the past few days, and today he was sent back down again in favor of Denis Tolpeko. Tolpeko played 24 games with the Flyers earlier this year, registering one goal and five assists.

*Continued Line Shake-up With all of the injuries and ineffectiveness, Flyers coach John Stevens is juggling lines on a daily basis. Here are the possible line combinations for tonights contest, courtesy of Bill Meltzer:

Hartnell - Richards- Briere
Upshall - Carter- Kapanen
Tolpeko - Umberger - Knuble
Cote - Dowd - (Seven D?)


Timonen - Vandermeer
Smith - Coburn
Parent - Jones
Kukkonen??

The Flyers don't have enough forwards up with the big club, so the speculation is that they will play seven defensemen. Briere will be kept on the wing. It obviously didn't work yesterday, but so we'll see how long they stick with it.