Flyers, Red Wings hold optional morning skates

PHILADELPHIA -- The Flyers and Red Wings both held optional skates Monday morning, so there's no real set way of knowing how each team will look when they hit the ice tonight here at the Wells Fargo Center.

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said he left it up to his players to decide if they wanted to skate this morning.

"It's a busy month," he said. "If you look at the amount of games we're playing, we're really trying to manage what we're doing here. The most important thing is the game tonight. If the guys feel like they need a break this morning, take the break."

Among those who stayed off the ice were forwards Jaromir Jagr, Scott Hartnell, Claude Giroux and Danny Briere. Also missing were defensemen Kimmo Timonen and Andrej Meszaros, both of whom are out indefinitely with lower-body injuries.

The injury-ravaged Red Wings only had 10 players on the ice, among them Johan Franzen and Tomas Holmstrom. Out tonight are forwards Pavel Datsyuk (knee) and Todd Bertuzzi (groin), defensemen Nicklas Lidstrom (ankle), Jonathan Ericsson (wrist) and Jakub Kindl (upper body), and goalie Jimmy Howard (lower body).

However, Laviolette said he doesn't expect much to change in the Wings' team game.

"I think anytime you take big pieces out of teams there's a difference," he said. "They still probably play with the same style that they've played with for years."

Babcock said he won't change anything about how he expects his team to play, regardless of who's in or out of the lineup.

"We try to do the same things," he said. "You're cognizant that you can't race to 10, you don't have the firepower. Different guys get different opportunities."

Here is what each team could look like when they take the ice tonight:

RED WINGS
Henrik Zetterberg - Valtteri Filppula - Jiri Hudler
Johan Franzen - Darren Helm - Drew Miller
Danny Cleary - Justin Abdelkader - Jan Mursak
Tomas Holmstrom - Cory Emmerton - Chris Conner

Niklas Kronwall - Brad Stuart
Kyle Quincey - Ian White
Brendan Smith - Doug Janik

Joey MacDonald will start in goal, with Jordan Pearce backing him up.

FLYERS
Scott Hartnell - Claude Giroux - Jaromir Jagr
Matt Read - Danny Briere - Wayne Simmonds
Maxime Talbot - Brayden Schenn - Jakub Voracek
Eric Wellwood - Sean Couturier - Zac Rinaldo

Nicklas Grossmann - Braydon Coburn
Matt Carle - Pavel Kubina
Andreas Lilja - Erik Gustafsson

Ilya Bryzgalov will start in goal for the ninth straight game, with Sergei Bobrovsky backing him up.
 
Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @NHLAdamK

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