Flyers Meet Rangers In Metro Clash

The Philadelphia Flyers will look to pick up a rare win at Madison Square Garden Sunday.

After suffering a first home loss in more than two months Saturday, the Philadelphia Flyers will hit the road looking to return to winning ways.

The second half of a back-to-back sees the Flyers make the trip to Manhattan to take on Metropolitan Division rivals, the New York Rangers.

Face-off at Madison Square Garden is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET.

Having won 10 straight games at Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia (23-18-4, 50pts) came unstuck Saturday, falling to the Tampa Bay Lightning in what the Philadelphia Daily News rightly described as an “odd game.”

The Flyers had more shots, more possession a fewer turnovers, yet still somehow ended up on the wrong end of a 6-3 final score.

The loss, which marked the first time Craig Berube’s side had been beaten at home since November 7, was a rare defeat for a team that has taken 10 of its last 13 contests.

Now, Claude Giroux and Co. will look to get back on the winning path with a trip to their long-time rivals.

Like the Flyers, the Rangers (23-20-3, 49pts) have been getting hot of late.

Alain Vigneault’s side has won two straight, including a big-time road win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday.  A 3-2 defeat of the Dallas Stars at Madison Square Garden on Friday gave the Rangers a third win in four games and seven in the last 10.

Friday’s win over the Stars, which saw Rick Nash score the winner against his former club, marked the start of a four-game homestand for the Rangers and a period of seven homes games in eight contests.

But the friendly confines haven’t been too comforting for the Rangers this season. The club is just 9-10-3 at home this season, and went 3-4-2 the last time it had a prolonged homestand (Dec. 7-23).

However, that stretch closed out with a pair of wins, meaning the Rangers are 3-0-1 in their last four at home.

This run of good form has seen the Rangers climb into the playoff picture. The side currently occupies eighth-place (via the second wild card) but with just nine points separating No. 5 to No. 15 in the Eastern Conference, New York will need to keep rattling off wins to stay there.

The Flyers currently sit in sixth-place, just a solitary point ahead of the Rangers. Like New York, it has been a recent run of good form that has propelled the team into the playoff picture after a patchy start to the campaign.

With the two sides almost neck-and-neck, Sunday’s game takes on an even more important tone. That being said, any meeting between the Flyers and Rangers is sure to be a heated affair. That’s what 273 meetings will do for you.

Philadelphia Flyers vs. New York Rangers odds for 01/12/2014

The Rangers (-136) open as the favorite over the Flyers (+124) on the moneyline, a result of a combination of home ice advantage and superior head-to-head form in recent years.

New York has beaten Philadelphia in 11 of the last 14 meetings, but it was the Flyers that earned a 2-1 win at home against the Rangers in the first meeting between the sides this season (Oct. 24).

The Rangers have also won each of the last five showdowns in the Big Apple. You have to go back to February 20, 2011, to find a Flyers’ win at the Garden.

The Flyers (-245) are favored over the Rangers (+205) to cover the 1.5-goal spread.

We commented on Wednesday that the Rangers had been involved in a wild number of one-goal games of late. With both Wednesday’s win in Chicago and Friday’s home win over Dallas being decided by a single goal, the nine of the last 13 Ranger games have been one-goal affairs, which makes backing the Flyers against the spread a smart decision.

The over/under sits at 5.5 goals.

The total has gone over in six of the last nine meetings between the sides, as well as five of the last seven games played in New York.

After Sunday’s game in Manhattan, the Rangers and Flyers will meet two more times this season; in Philadelphia on March 1 before closing out the season head-to-head at Madison Square Garden on March 26.

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