NEWARK, N.J. -- Patrik Elias will return to the Devils lineup Friday after missing Tuesday's game with an illness. David Clarkson, who sat out practice Thursday with an illness, will also play.

However, rookie defenseman Adam Larsson is in Sweden attending his grandmother's funeral and Henrik Tallinder will miss his fourth straight game with back spasms.

Here is how the Devils lines and defense pairings will look in front of Martin Brodeur:

Zach Parise - Adam Henrique - Ilya Kovalchuk
Petr Sykora - Patrik Elias - Dainius Zubrus
Mattias Tedenby - Travis Zajac - David Clarkson
Tim Sestito - Ryan Carter - Cam Janssen

Bryce Salvador - Mark Fayne
Anton Volchenkov - Kurtis Foster
Alexander Urbom - Matt Taormina

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl

NEWARK, N.J. -- Devils goalie Martin Brodeur will continue his search for consistency Friday night against the Capitals as he's expected to make his third consecutive start.

Brodeur said Friday morning that he's still trying to find a rhythm this season and it's been more difficult than he expected because he's not playing both games in back-to-back situations and he also sat out six games in October with an injury.

The Devils have played six sets of back-to-backs and 24 games in total since Brodeur returned from his early-season injury. He's started 17 times and is 8-8 with a 3.09 goals-against average.

"I thought it would be easy to take the break and be more rested and that would be a better thing, but it's been tricky," said Brodeur, who will also be looking to snap his personal five-game losing streak to the Capitals. "Practice is more important for me now, where before it was games, games, games. Now practice becomes games for me."

Brodeur also said practice has become harder for him this season because he doesn't have to conserve as much energy as he had to in years past.

"It's that balance I need to have between games and practices that I'm not used to," he said. "That's what I'm going through right now, but slowly I'll get to the same level as far as playing games."

He should as long as he stays healthy.

The Devils will have 48 games remaining after the holiday break, but only seven more sets of back-to-backs. Brodeur could conceivably get somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 more starts, which would put him either at or close to 60 games played. That's right around the number the Devils were looking for from their future Hall of Fame goalie this season considering he is only five and half months shy of his 40th birthday.

"Marty's reputation prior to me coming here was this guy is one of the hardest-working guys in practice, and I've seen exactly that," Devils coach Pete DeBoer said. "I've seen a guy who comes to work everyday, cares about his game, is willing to put in in extra work when things aren't going right. It turns around for guys like that. It may not turn around today or the next day, but if you consistency do that you reap the rewards of that and he has entire career. I don't expect that to change.

"We need him healthy and fresh the second half. That's critical."

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl

PHILADELPHIA -- When work is being done on the rink being built for the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, you can be sure to find NHL Senior Facilities Operations Manager Dan Craig hovering somewhere nearby, keeping a close watch on things.

Today, for the first time during working hours, Craig will leave the ballpark.

No, he's not getting an early start to his holiday break. He and a few members of his ice crew will head across the street to Wells Fargo Center to start a process called "slushing."

What Craig and his crew will do is pick up a load of snow from the rink across the street, bring it back here to Citizens Bank Park, and then turn it into slush. They'll take that slush and use it to seal the bottom of the boards to the ice tray, and seal the gaps between the trays where the coolant hoses run. That will keep any water from leaking out of the rink.

That will happen later this afternoon. In the meantime, the workers are building the stage that will surround the rink -- for as long as the weather holds out. As you can see from this dynamic photo taken by my colleague Matt Coe around 11 a.m., things could get stormy around here soon.

We'll have more later, and if all goes well, an in-depth look at the slushing process. You can follow along with all the progress with NHL.com's live webcam.

Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @NHLAdamK

While Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron may operate on the second line of the defending champion Boston Bruins, there's nothing secondary about their production as of late.

Marchand (15 G, 14 A, plus-25, 58 PIM, 3 PPP, 78 SOG) and Bergeron (7 G, 21 A, plus-21, 12 PIM, 7 PPP, 86 SOG) were a two-man wrecking crew on Friday night, combining for eight points and a plus-7 rating in the Bruins' 8-0 rout of the

Patrice Bergeron

Center - BOS

GOALS: 7 | ASST: 21 | PTS: 28
SOG: 86 | +/-: 21

Southeast division-leading Florida Panthers. Marchand notched a shorthanded goal and ultimately his first career hat trick, while Bergeron tallied two points on the power-play and three overall to keep the Bruins rolling into the holiday break.

With Boston sporting a 20-2-1 mark in its last 23 games, the team's secondary unit continues to make an impact in a number of different areas on a regular basis. Both Marchand and Bergeron are among the League's top-10 in plus-minus and rank second and third, respectively, on the team in points. On Wednesday, Bergeron (3:00 PP ice time per game) and Marchand (2:36) even produced on special teams.

Marchand (owned in 76 percent of leagues) and Bergeron (67 percent), despite their place in the League's deepest lineup, are proving to be premier all-around options with the Bruins surging over the last two months.

Despite another late lead gone to waste for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Jeff Carter delivered the club's most promising individual effort of the season.

Carter notched a first period hat trick in Tuesday's 6-5 road loss to the Nashville Predators.  With a streak of three-straight 30-plus goal, 60-plus point campaigns on the line, the 26-year-old forward has finally reassured panicking fantasy owners by scoring seven goals in his last seven games.

Jeff Carter

Center - CBJ

GOALS: 10 | ASST: 6 | PTS: 16
SOG: 78 | +/-: -9

While Carter is playing for a team that is currently last in the League standings, he picked up steam as a power-play threat against the Predators. Carter has averaged 3:54 of power-play ice time this season, and finally broke through with a pair of goals on the man advantage on Thursday.

Operating on Columbus' top line with Rick Nash and Vinny Prospal, Carter has seen his team's struggles take a toll on his fantasy showing through 23 games this season. His minus-9 rating is evidence of that.  But despite missing time due to injury this season, Carter is beginning to show chemistry with Nash, who assisted on two of his three goals on Thursday.

Carter (owned in 94 percent of Yahoo! leagues) appears to be turning the corner after a slow start in Columbus, so the time has finally come for his fantasy owners to ride the wave of success.

At 6:37 of the second period in the Panthers/Senators game, video review upheld the referee's call on the ice that Florida forward Kris Versteeg's shot deflected off Michael Repik's skate and into the net in a legal fashion. According to rule 49.2 "A puck that deflects into the net off an attacking player's skate who does not use a distinct kicking motion is a legitimate goal."  Good Goal Florida.

NEW YORK -- John Tortorella was short and sweet at his pre-game meeting with reporters Thursday, confirming only that Martin Biron would start in net for the Rangers and Jeff Woywitka's foot would keep him out of the lineup.

It will be Biron's eight start of the season, putting him on pace to be the busiest backup goaltender the Rangers have had since Henrik Lundqvist took over the full-time duties in 2006-07. The 34-year-old Biron is 6-1-0 with a 1.82 goals-against average and .934 save percentage.

The Rangers will use the same lineup from their 4-1 win in New Jersey on Tuesday. It should look something like this:

Carl Hagelin - Brad Richards - Ryan Callahan
Artem Anisimov - Derek Stepan - Marian Gaborik
Brandon Dubinsky - Brian Boyle - John Mitchell
Brandon Prust - Michael Rupp - Ruslan Fedotenko

Ryan McDonagh - Dan Girardi
Michael Del Zotto - Stu Bickel
Tim Erixon - Anton Stralman

Martin Biron
Henrik Lundqvist

In the Islanders' 3-2 shootout win in Winnipeg on Tuesday, goaltender Al Montoya and forward David Ullstrom were lost due to concussions. Micheal Haley was recalled from the AHL to take Ullstrom's spot, while Evgeni Nabokov will make the start.

The Islanders lines will likely look this way:

Matt Moulson - John Tavares - PA Parenteau
Michael Grabner - Frans Nielsen - Kyle Okposo
Matt Martin - Josh Bailey - Tim Wallace
Micheal Haley - Marty Reasoner - Nino Niederreiter

Mark Streit - Milan Jurcina
Andrew MacDonald - Travis Hamonic
Mark Eaton - Mike Mottau

Evgeni Nabokov
Anders Nilsson

Follow Dave Lozo on Twitter: @DaveLozo

PHILADELPHIA -- This will be the third time the Winter Classic is held at a baseball stadium, but with Citizens Bank Park, there are more than a few differences between this park and Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, starting with the obvious.

"This stadium is 90 years newer than that one (Fenway)," Renzulli said. "Most of it is winterized. There was not much we had to do as far as the stadium is concerned … all the bathrooms are winterized."

Renzulli also said Citizens Bank Park reminds him more of a football stadium than it does the previous baseball parks the NHL has used.

"This place, to me, this is more of a football stadium because it's so vertical," he said. "The sight lines are great. For hockey the higher you go up the better, the better seat it is, and this is a very tall stadium. As I walk around, now that the rink is up, and I look down, there are phenomenal seats here."

Renzulli added that with the temporary seating added in center field, as well as a few other places around the ballpark, capacity will be about 47,000 for the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic.

Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on  Twitter: @NHLAdamK

PHILADELPHIA -- Weather permitting, NHL Senior Facilities Operations Manager Dan Craig told reporters this afternoon that he hopes to start spraying water on the hockey rink here at Citizens Bank Park sometime after 3 p.m. tomorrow.

"Right now I know for a fact I won't be starting anything until 3 p.m. tomorrow," Craig said. "I know I can't work on this floor before 3. Anything after 3, and probably until 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, that's when we'll do it."

Craig said he hopes to have the ice truck start pumping the glycol coolant into the aluminum ice trays sometime around 7 or 8 p.m. tonight, which eventually will bring the floor of the rink to the right temperature to start making ice.

"Probably within the next 3-4 hours we're going to start filing up the main header pipes and the truck is ready to fire up and hopefully sometime tonight we'll get the floor back down to temperature we require and do a good test run tonight," Craig said. "And we'll take a look at seeing if we can make ice tomorrow."

Eventually, Craig said he'll make two inches of ice for the Flyers and Rangers to skate on. At 10,000 gallons of water per inch of ice, that takes a lot of work and a lot of time to freeze. That's the reason the flood starts eight days before the first official on-ice event -- the media skate on Dec. 30.

"Can we do it in three days? Yes, we can do it in three days," Craig said. "Do I want to do it in six? I want to do it in six."

Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @NHLAdamK