Flyers Notes: Leino pays back his former team

DETROIT - Winger Ville Leino had Sunday's game in Detroit circled on his calendar since the start of the season.

It was a chance to show the Red Wings, up close, that they made a mistake when they dealt him to the Flyers last February for Ole-Kristian Tollefsen and a 2011 fifth-round draft pick.

"I've been thinking about it since the first day of the season," Leino admitted before the Flyers' exciting 3-2 win over the Red Wings.

Leino was plus-1 in the game, but he was called for a highly questionable goalie-interference penalty that set up the Wings' second goal and cut the deficit to 3-2 with 7 minutes, 32 seconds left. Detroit's Drew Miller appeared to push Leino into goalie Chris Osgood.

"I got shoved into the goalie and there's not much I could do," Leino said. "It was a bad situation to get a penalty, too."

But the Flyers survived, winning in Detroit for the first time since 1988. The Red Wings entered the game as the NHL's top team.

"Usually we play better against the good hockey teams," he said. "Sometimes when we play teams that are below us, we're not as ready to play, for some reason, as we are the good teams."

Coach Peter Laviolette reunited Leino, Danny Briere, and Scott Hartnell. That line had been split up for the previous two games. Laviolette also put Mike Richards back with James van Riemsdyk and Andreas Nodl, and Jeff Carter with Claude Giroux and Darroll Powe.

The Red Wings dealt Leino - whom Detroit coach Mike Babcock didn't think was competitive enough - partly because they needed to reduce their salary cap to activate two players.

For the Flyers, it has turned out to be arguably the best deal of general manager Paul Holmgren's tenure. Leino equaled an NHL rookie record by scoring 21 points in last year's Stanley Cup playoffs, and he has produced nine goals and 17 assists this season.

After sitting out a two-game suspension, winger Jody Shelley returned to the Flyers' lineup. Nik Zherdev, whose erratic play has had him benched recently, was scratched with a leg injury, but he should be available Thursday in New Jersey.

Peter Luukko denied published reports that his team was approached about having the Winter Classic at Lincoln Financial Field next year.

"We have not been contacted by the league, but certainly would like to play a game in Philly at some point," said Luukko, president of the Flyers' parent company, Comcast-Spectacor.

Eventually, a New Year's Day game in hockey-crazed Philadelphia figures to happen. It is doubtful, however, that the NHL would have a Pennsylvania team in the Winter Classic for three straight years. The Flyers played in Boston in the 2010 game, while the Penguins hosted the Capitals this year.

Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, a onetime rookie-of-the-year favorite, has started just three of the last 10 games. . . . Flyers color commentator Steve Coates played five games for the Red Wings in 1976-77, and he painfully recalled pulling a groin and falling down while going in on a breakaway that season. . . . Erik Gustafsson was scratched for the third straight time since his call-up from the Phantoms.

- Sam Carchidi