Game #38 Review: Flyers 5 @ Ducks 4 (SO) 1/2/09

5 (SO)

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4

This was a really fun game. Not a lot of defense, a lot of hitting, two fights in the first period, a six-goal second period, a shootout. What more could you ask for? And a shootout win is just as good as a regulation win when facing an out-of-conference foe.

• I know New Jersey and Washington to be often overrun by Flyers fans, but I totally didn't expect to hear "Let's Go Fly-ers" chants drowning out the crowd in Anaheim of all places. Anaheim is about as far from Philadelphia as you can get in the NHL. There've been big Flyers contingents in the stands all road trip long. Flyers fans who don't get to see the club in person much are turning out for these games, making the first four of the six on the road trip all sell outs. And setting all-time attendance records in Chicago and Anaheim. Pretty cool.
• Scottie Upshall doesn't seem to have missed a beat.
• That was not a great effort by Martin Biron for most of the game, but he played as well as he needed to, getting the two points and the win. It was a real good shootout effort from him, which has definitely been his Achilles' heel.
• The color issues CSN Philly were having were actually kinda fun. The orange on the Flyers jerseys was often hot pink, sometimes blue, sometimes purple. It added even more surreality to the second period.
• Claude Giroux is just up from the AHL and is getting to lead off shoot-outs? Like the confidence in him, but maybe lets key things down just a bit. Mike Richards played his shootout round perfectly, so it was all good.
• The Flyers two got goals from their defensemen tonight, with Ossi Vaananen and Braydon Coburn. Those two goals are two more goals than the Flyers got from their defensemen during the seventeen games of the 2008 Playoffs...
• Speaking of unlikely goal-getters, kudos to Josh Gratton on his first of the season.
• J-S Giguere's style of goaltending looks like a third grader thought of it. The old strategy of putting the fattest kid possible in net so he takes up as much space as possible. Who goes down on EVERY shot? As a disciple of the Parent-Hextall school of goaltending, I can't think of any worse strategy. God only knows how he got all those shutouts in those 2003 playoffs.

Onto Los Angeles for the Flyers, to play the struggling Kings. Will they get a sweep in California? Will it be another sell out? Will anyone have heard of the Kings' starting goalie? Only time will tell.

Game #38 Preview: Flyers @ Ducks 1/2/09

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Across the halfway mark of the six-game road trip, the Flyers venture to the city of Mickey Mouse and the Rally Monkey to play the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Stanley Cup winners of just two seasons ago.

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This is a big game if only for the reason that it represents the first chance the Flyboys have had all year to move into (a share of) first place in the Atlantic Division with a win. The Rangers are idle tonight, and two points would tie the Flyers with them at 49 points, with the Flyers having a game in hand. With first in the division comes the #3 seed, a historically good number for the Flyers since the non-divisional playoffs (see 1997 Finals, 2004 Conference Finals) (don't see 1998). So that would be a nice milestone if nothing else, and would really represent triumph over the Curse of Sarah Palin.

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Why The Flyers Will Win:

• The chance to get first in the Atlantic will add motivation for an inter-conference game that's just not there for Anaheim.
• Ducks have lost four of five, their only win over the lowly St. Louis Blues.
• The Ducks are the definition of mediocrity. Won half of their home games, lost half of their home games. They've won half of their road games, lost half of their road games. They've Scored 107 goals, let in 107 goals. In the old days we woulda assured a tie, but since I'm feeling optimistic these days, I'll say this ensures a Flyers win. Or at the very least overtime.
• Last time the Flyers were in Anaheim, they scored five goals. In the first period.

Why The Ducks Will Win

• The young Flyers, with their Center City barhopping habits and parties thrown by Joffrey Lupul, almost certainly got way more hammered on New Years Eve than did the Ducks. WAY more hammered.

That's all I can come up with in the Anaheim column. Which is a good thing.

Puck drops at 10 EST.

Road Trip!

The Flyers are 10-0-2 in their last twelve home games. What better time to go on a six-game road trip? What prospect could be more exciting than thirteen of the next eighteen games away from home?

Because of their location right in the center of it all in Philadelphia, the Flyers do less traveling than most any other team. No team in the NHL has a less distant most distant divisional opponent (you may have to read that more than once to get it).

The Flyers have won less than half their road games, stacking up a decidedly unimpressive 7-4-4 record away from home this year, and are winless outside the Eastern Time Zone. The Flyers have only won one game on the road this year that followed another road game. And so on and so on...

Now that all the doom and gloom is out of the way, here's a quick blow-by-blow of the Flyers' next two weeks of nomadism:

1. @ Chicago, 12/26. There may be no worse team to be facing right now than the Blackhawks. The combination of Patrick Kane (#1 in Western Conference forward All-Star voting), Jonathan Toews (#2 in Western Conference forward All-Star voting), and the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field have made hockey suddenly relevant in this once deadest of Original Six cities, with the Blackhawks now easily selling out every home game. The 'Hawks have won seven in a row, including a couple huge blowouts, as well as a sweep of the Flames, Oilers, and Canucks on a swing through Western Canada. This isn't the team you want to start a long road campaign against.


2. @ Columbus, 12/27. You gotta feel for Blue Jackets fans, who are still waiting on their first playoff appearance in this their ninth season. They do have some nice goaltending coming up in Steve Mason, and they did have that one fluke nice win over San Jose. The Flyers have never lost to the Blue Jackets in their seven previous meetings. The real concern here is that the Flyers have to play in front of thousands of Ohioans on an "All You Can Eat Night." Even with plexiglass separating the Flyers from the hoards of masticating Buckeyes, it has to be a troubling scene.



3. @ Vancouver 12/30. The last Flyers game of 2008 is in Vancouver, home of the 2010 Olympics and one of the most unpredictable teams in the NHL. The Canucks have been minus-Luongo, but are now plus-Sundin, a change to the equation that might not make a ton of difference early on given Mats' absence from the game. The Flyers are secretly phenomenal in Vancouver, stacking up a 30-10-12 (W-L-T, no OTLs) all-time record in British Columbia.


4. @ Anaheim 1/2. After ringing in 2009 at Disneyland (presumably), the Flyers face the Anaheim Ducks, who seem to have now fully recovered from falling flat on their faces in the 2008 playoffs during their attempt to defend their 2007 Stanley Cup. The Ducks have recovered from their early losing skids, and have racked up plenty of wins lately. It is easily noted, however, that most all of these wins have come against pretty crappy teams. And the Flyers are not a crappy team.


5. @ Los Angeles 1/3. The second-to-last regular season game for the Flyers outside of the Eastern Time Zone is at the Staples Center, versus the always disappointing Los Angeles Kings. The Kings are so bad that FS-W interviews the cast of Chuck during play rather than show the game. The Flyers should be happy to get the Kings past regulation, where they are a decidedly less-than-kingly 2-6.


6. @ Washington 1/6. The Flyers end their epic six-game trek close to home, at the friendly confines of the Verizon Center, where they play an otherwise hot Capitals team that pooed all over themselves upon stepping onto the ice in Philadelphia last Saturday in a blowout 7-1 loss at the Wachovia Center. This marks the Flyers' first return to D.C. since their Game 7 OT win in the first round of the 2008 playoffs, their first return since getting garbage thrown at them during post-game interviews. Caps head coach Bruce Boudreau vowed revenge or something after the Caps aforementioned self-pooing in Philadelphia last Saturday, so we'll have to wait and see if that leads to anything. Previous talk by Caps players about wanting revenge against the Flyers for their playoff loss to them only led to self-pooing the first time, and it's likely the result will be the same again. With that in mind, it's still worth noting that Alex Ovechkin is still frighteningly good.

Then it's back home to brotherly love and WaWa. The Flyers are only two points behind the Rangers for first in the Atlantic, with a whopping three games in-hand, so they have a huge opportunity on this tough part of the schedule. Let's just hope they can make the most of it.