Gameday; Leafs visit Flyers

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c/p
hockeybuzz

Trying for the third time this season to reach the .500 mark, the Philadelphia Flyers (9-10-1) host the Toronto Maple Leafs (11-8-0) at the Wells Fargo Center. The game starts at 7 p.m. EST and will be televised on CSN Philly.

This is the second of three meetings between the teams this season and the lone match in Philadelphia. On Feb 11, the Flyers got their season-high six game road trip off to an inauspicious start with a 5-2 loss in Toronto.

In that game, the Flyers played a solid first period, but Toronto took over the game in a second period with three unanswered goals. After falling behind 4-1, Peter Laviolette brought in Brian Boucher to relieve Ilya Bryzgalov. The Flyers wasted a five-minute power play and never mounted any sort of challenge. Toronto's win was punctuated in the third period by James van Riemsdyk blowing past Luke Schenn to go in and score.

The Flyers enter this game coming off a dramatic comeback win over Winnipeg that saw Philly's power play strike three times en route to erasing deficits of 1-0 and 3-1 to skate off with a 5-3 victory. Brayden Schenn scored twice, Wayne Simmonds earned his second Gordie Howe Hat Trick of the week, Jakub Voracek racked up three more assists and both Claude Giroux and Zac Rinaldo (12 hits, empty net goal) added single tallies. Nicklas Grossmann was credited with seven hits and three blocked shots.

On Saturday, Scott Hartnell made a surprise early return to lineup from a broken bone in his right foot. However, defenseman Andrej Meszaros (shoulder) is not yet ready to return, and Matt Read (torn muscles near his ribcage) is out until April.

The Maple Leafs come to Philadelphia looking to move past a disappointing 3-2 regulation loss to Ottawa. The game was tied, 2-2, until Ottawa scored the winning goal with less than a half minute left in the third period. The team is 3-3-0 since the big win over the Flyers; a game that saw starting goalie James Reimer suffer a knee injury that forced him out of the lineup.

Apart from Reimer, the Leafs remain without Joffrey Lupul (arm) and Matt Frattin (knee). Enforcer Colton Orr, who scored the game-turning goal in the first match against Philadelphia, is questionable for tonight with a lower-body injury.

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c/p associated press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) The excitement James van Riemsdyk felt about playing his first game in Philadelphia since a trade to Toronto quickly turned to nerves when the Maple Leafs winger spent four minutes in the penalty box in the third period.
But the Maple Leafs survived van Riemdsyk's late double minor and picked up goals from Phil Kessel, Nikolai Kulemin, Mikhail Grabovski and Jay McClement to beat the Flyers 4-2 on Monday night.
Van Riemsdyk, who was drafted with the second overall pick in the 2007 draft by the Flyers and played three seasons with them before being traded in June, was held scoreless in his return to Philadelphia but was happy to get out of town with the win.
``It was one of those cases where the boys did great on the penalty kill,'' said van Riemsdyk, who leads Toronto with 11 goals. ``That's a first for me: two penalties on one shift. Hopefully, the last. It was an uneasy feeling for me, and the team really bailed me out.''
Scott Hartnell, playing his second game since fracturing his foot Jan. 22, scored his first goal of the season for the Flyers. And Jakub Voracek, who brought a five-game scoring streak into the game, assisted on Hartnell's goal and then scored one of his own on the power play to cut Toronto's lead to 3-2 late in the third period.
But Toronto goaltender Ben Scrivens, who finished with 23 saves, was at his best in the final few minutes to secure the victory.
``We did a really good job of clearing pucks and clearing rebounds in the third,'' Scrivens said. ``The (Flyers) really got into it in the third, and made it close and then their building got into it. We found a way to hang on and we made some smart plays.''
After Toronto opened a 2-0 lead, Hartnell, who enjoyed a breakout season last year with a career-high 37 goals, got the Flyers on the board with 2 minutes left in the second period off an excellent crossing pass from Voracek.
Despite getting his first goal of the season, however, Hartnell said he felt ``a little worse'' physically than he did in the last game and that he ``won't be able to sleep much tonight'' because of the loss. The most frustrating part, he noted, was that the defeat came after such a strong surge to close the contest.
``When we play like we did in the last 10 minutes, I don't think there's a team in the league that can play with us,'' Hartnell said. ``We're skating, we're hitting, we're beating them to pucks, we're winning battles. And that's something in the first 50 minutes we never did.''
The Leafs took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission after Kessel outhustled Kimmo Timonen to a puck along the boards with 2:41 left and beat Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, who made 17 saves, to the far side. The tough-angle goal - Kessel's fourth of the season - came off a smart pass from Tyler Bozak.
Toronto doubled its lead with just under 5 minutes remaining in the second period when Nikolai Kulemin was sprung free on a breakaway by Nazem Kadri and backhanded it past Bryzgalov for his second goal of the season.
``It's been talked about too many times,'' Hartnell said. ``It's got to change fast. We can't get down 2-0 every game and expect to win, especially against a team like Toronto. They're playing really well.''
Toronto made it 3-1 with 12:08 left in the game on Grabovski's sixth goal of the year. Seconds after the Maple Leafs' power play ended, Clark MacArthur's shot right in front of the net was saved but the rebound was kicked right to Grabovski, who backhanded it past Bryzgalov.
Voracek's goal came with 8:18 off an assist from Timonen, slicing the Flyers' deficit to 3-2. The 23-year-old winger, in his second year with Philly, now has five goals and nine assists in the past five games.
But McClement iced the victory with an empty-netter in the final seconds.
``It's a challenge here but we did enough to get a win,'' said van Riemsdyk. ``We were all in, we all went in the right direction, we all pulled the rope. There were no passenger and that's what we needed. We got off to a good start and that was the key.''
Notes: NHL legend Wayne Gretzky was in the house, watching from a suite at the Wells Fargo Center, along with former Flyers goaltender Bernie Parent. . Philadelphia's Tye McGinn and Toronto's Mike Brown dropped the gloves in the first period and Brown didn't return after the fight because of a lower body injury. When asked if the injury was serious, Carlyle said, ``They're all serious.'' ... During the game the Flyers announced they traded Mike Testwuide to Calgary for Mitch Wahl. Wahl is currently playing for AHL Abbotsford and will be assigned to Adirondack.