The Red Wings, who are looking to reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the 25th consecutive season, are third in the Atlantic Division with 91 points, the same as the fourth-place Boston Bruins. But the Red Wings have the regulation/overtime win (ROW) tiebreaker, 38-37.
"This has been all season long," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "I said on NHL Network yesterday we've been in the playoffs all season. Every game's been tight. Game 1 is extraordinarily important; so is Game 80. So let's go out and be focused on doing the things it takes to be successful."
The Flyers also have 91 points and hold the second wild card into the playoffs in the Eastern Conference because they've played two fewer games than the Bruins.
"We circled this game a long time ago," Philadelphia center Claude Giroux said. "And today is the day. It's a good feeling … at the end of the day we just have to go out and play our game."
Said Flyers coach Dave Hakstol, "You don't need, really, to talk about the importance of this game. ... Just go out and play a road game with intensity. We know what's on the line."
Goalie Steve Mason will make his 10th straight start for the Flyers, who will have one lineup change. Defenseman Evgeny Medvedev will replace Andrew MacDonald, who is day-to-day because of an upper-body injury.
Jimmy Howard will make his third straight start in goal for Detroit.
"This is as about as big as we've had in a little while in the regular season," Howard said. "It's going to be fun. The atmosphere is going to be great. It's going to be a hell of a game."
Here are the projected lineups:
FLYERS
Brayden Schenn - Claude Giroux - Wayne Simmonds
Michael Raffl - Sean Couturier - Jakub Voracek
Matt Read - Nick Cousins - Sam Gagner
Chris VandeVelde - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Ryan White
Nick Schultz - Mark Streit
Brandon Manning - Shayne Gostisbehere
Evgeny Medvedev - Radko Gudas
Steve Mason
Anthony Stolarz
Injured: Michael Del Zotto (wrist), Michal Neuvirth (lower body), Andrew MacDonald (upper body)
Scratched: R.J. Umberger, Scott Laughton, Jordan Weal
RED WINGS
Justin Abdelkader - Henrik Zetterberg - Dylan Larkin
Darren Helm - Pavel Datsyuk - Brad Richards
Gustav Nyquist - Riley Sheahan - Tomas Tatar
Andreas Athanasiou - Luke Glendening - Tomas Jurco
Danny DeKeyser - Kyle Quincey
Niklas Kronwall - Alexey Marchenko
Jonathan Ericsson - Mike Green
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Injured: Drew Miller (knee), Johan Franzen (concussion)
Scratched: Anthony Mantha, Teemu Pulkkinen, Brendan Smith
Status update: Jurco replaces Mantha in the lineup. He had been a healthy scratch the past 10 games. … Medvedev has played once in the past 15 games, March 12 against the Florida Panthers.
Who's hot:Simmonds has four goals and two assists in his past four games. … Richards and Green each had a goal and an assist each in a 3-2 win at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.
