Hurricanes hope to get untracked against Flyers

FLYERS (4-9-0) at HURRICANES (4-7-3)

TV: NBCSN, CSN-PH

Last 10: Philadelphia (4-6-0); Carolina (2-6-2)

Season series: It's the second of four meetings between the Metropolitan Division rivals. On Oct. 6, Radek Dvorak scored what held as the game-winner at 8:20 of the second period in a 2-1 Carolina Hurricanes victory.

Big story: The Philadelphia Flyers hope they were able to gain momentum from their 1-0 win against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday. That victory came on the heels of a 7-0 blowout loss to the Washington Capitals 24 hours earlier that featured goaltender Ray Emery skating the length of the ice to fight Capitals goalie Braden Holtby. However, Emery returned one night later to backstop the shutout of the Devils.

The Hurricanes have lost five straight, but hope to use a five-game homestand, which starts Tuesday, as a chance to right themselves.

"Home is a place where you need to execute and you need to be good," Hurricanes defenseman Jay Harrison told the team's website. "Your home record is very indicative of where you are in this League and it's something that we've consciously identified as an area that needs improvement. We want to take pride in the way we play at home."

Team scope:

Flyers: The Flyers hope to have Vincent Lecavalier back in the lineup. Lecavalier sat out the game Saturday against the Devils with facial contusions sustained during a fight Friday against the Capitals.

Lecavalier practiced Monday wearing a special cage to protect some swelling that remains on the left side of his face. He originally tried wearing a bubble shield, but found more comfort with the half shield, half cage, which he said was similar to what Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins wore after he returned from a broken jaw last season.

"My vision was a little bit better with my half shield and the little protective thing to protect the lower part of my face," Lecavalier said. "It fogs up and all that, but those are all things between shifts. Obviously I have to have that right now. I feel good [Monday]. Hopefully I’ll be able to play [Tuesday]. I felt fine on the ice. I just need to protect it and I'll be good."

Hurricanes: Carolina has lost five straight games, but the players believe they know how to turn things around.

"Working," Harrison told the team's website. "That's the key."

The players believe it's not an issue with the system the team uses; it's how the players execute it that needs to be fixed.

"It's not necessarily the program that has the problem," Harrison said. "It's the execution. We've got to commit to this thing. It's patience, it's confidence in the system and it's execution. That will alleviate much of the bleeding and we can snap out of this as quickly as it happened, that's for sure."

Who's hot: Emery had a 14-save shutout Saturday. And in his most recent game in Carolina, he made 28 saves in a 2-0 shutout of the Hurricanes in his first game as a Flyer, back on Oct. 2, 2009.

Injury report: Flyers forward Steve Downie is out indefinitely with a concussion. … Out for the Hurricanes are defenseman Joni Pitkanen (heel), goalies Anton Khudobin (lower body) and Cam Ward (lower body), and forward Jeff Skinner (upper body). Defenseman Tim Gleason (upper body) and forward Kevin Westgarth (upper body) are questionable.

Follow Adam Kimelman on Twitter: @NHLAdamK