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The Rangers head to Philly tonight to take on the lowly Flyers who will try and play spoiler to the Rangers playoff chances. The boys from Philly are stuck at 39 pts, good for 12th in the Conference and seven points behind the 8th seeded Rangers. This game (and the rest of the schedule for that matter) has trap game written all over it after the war with the Islanders (still sounds weird, right?) on Saturday night. They need to keep their nose to the grindstone.
As we’ve discussed before, Peter Laviolette throws two different forechecking looks at the opposition. The first look is the 2-1-2 forecheck, and once the Flyers get a lead, they tend to switch to a more conservative 2-3 left wing lock. Both systems send two forecheckers into the zone, but the 2-3 leaves one forward high in the zone, while the 2-1-2 sends an additional forechecker in deep. The 2-12 also allows defensemen to join the forecheck.
In their own zone, the Flyers play a low zone collapse, which is similar to the Rangers. This creates a logjam in the high-priced real estate, but gives some leeway at the point for puck movement.On special teams, the Flyers play an umbrella powerplay (like most NHL teams) and a diamond penalty kill.
For more on Tortorella’s systems read here.
2012-2013 Records: Flyers (18-21-3), Rangers (21-16-4)
NYR Leading Scorer: Rick Nash (17-18-35)
PHI Leading Scorer: Claude Giroux/Jakub Voracek (13-29-42)/(18-24-42)
NYR Goaltender: Henrik Lundqvist (36 GP, 2.06 GAA, .928 SV%)
PHI Goaltender: Steve Mason (3 GP, 1.74 GAA, .934 SV%)
RSVP to potentially win tickets to a game
Rangers Lines (unconfirmed):
Rick Nash-Derek Stepan-Mats Zuccarello
Carl Hagelin-Derick Brassard-Ryan Callahan
Ryane Clowe-Brad Richards-Brian Boyle
Taylor Pyatt-Darroll Powe-Aaron Asham
Ryan McDonagh-Dan Girardi
Michael Del Zotto-Anton Stralman
John Moore-Steve Eminger
Henrik Lundqvist
Scratches/Injuries: Mike Sauer (concussion), Marc Staal (eye), Matt Gilroy (healthy), Roman Hamrlik (healthy)
Broadcast Info: NBC Sports, 7:30pm
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