Game #59 Review: Kings 0 @ Flyers 2 2/25/08

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Honestly I thought this game was pretty dull. Not a lot of goals, big saves, or big hitting. The one goal that was scored (not Gagne's empty netter) was about as ugly as a goal can get. Both teams looked hung over from last night's games, and it showed.

But it was a big win for the Flyers over a hot team that had beaten them previously this season. And it was a win in what amounts to one of those "games in hand" that get talked so much about. Flyers are still totally isolated in the standings, but they're moving closer to third than fifth, which is certainly a good thing.

Some more thoughts:

• Martin Biron's shutout was without any real highlight reel stuff, but a shutout is a shutout. It's great that he recovered from that horrible goal vs. Pittsburgh, but it's not so great that this sort of remains a distraction. Unless these two wind up thriving from the competition, in which case let them have dueling shutouts the rest of the season. Watch this vid, and you can see the moments where Biron decides to lie. And if I'm trying to figure out how the Flyers skaters align on which goalie they like more, I put Gagne in the Biron camp, while Hartnell seemed fairly firmly with Niitty yesterday
• Ugly goal from Jeff Carter. A much prettier empty netter from Simon Gagne, though way too fancypants, even for him.
• Those Kings white jerseys are hideous.
• Rangers lost in overtime, yay.
• Penguins won late, boo. A loss to the Islanders is just what they needed least at this point, so I was holding out a lot of hope for it.

I don't have much else to say. It was a hell of a snoozefest.

Couldn't be a better team to be playing next than Montreal, in my book. It's not a team the Flyers are likely to have a let down against, and it is a team that's struggling a lot.

Game #58 Review: Flyers 4 @ Capitals 2 2/24/08

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My cell phone photography skills are unparalleled.

• Arron Asham's goal was real pretty, but what doesn't get talked about enough on that play was what a horrible effort it was by Jose Theodore. Theodore started solid, but once the goals came they came hard and fast. As much as they don't like to agree with the rest of the league telling them this, Caps need a goalie at the trade deadline.
• You know who doesn't need a goalie at the trade deadline? The Flyers. Antero Niittymaki has really locked up the starting job barring any huge collapse. The Flyers need to be ready to remove him from the role if necessary, but it's gotta be his for now.
• Huge night for Riley Cote, which I don't think anyone expected. Riley was a +1 for probably the first time in his life, getting an assist on Asham's goal AND avoiding getting his face broken in half again by Donny Brashear. NO idea why Stevens put him on the ice with under eight minutes left in a one goal game, but the demoralization his playmaking caused was probably the highlight of the night.
• The Flyers depth on defense is amazing. As good as Kimmo Timonen, the Flyers really didn't miss a beat with their #7 d-man, Ossi Vaananen, in his place.
• Jeff Carter was the #1 star, but really didn't deserve it after that horrible turnover that led to Ovechkin's goal. The #1 star should have been...
• ...Claude Giroux, who clearly has studied at the Daniel Briere school of standing next to the net behind the goalie. The Flyers don't need Briere with Giroux playing this well (though one of those angles he took a shot from was absurdly acute).
• Scott Hartnell (erroneously second star) still has one of the best shots on the Flyers (probably second behind Carter), but needs to start being fined for these penalties. He now leads the league in minor penalties (link I found all by myself, I'm awesome)

Flyers play the Kings tonight. Dangerous opponent, could very easily be a letdown game. Kings won in a shootout in Minnesota last night, so did way more traveling. Hopefully Flyers ride this wave well, and hopefully Martin Biron feels like he has something to prove, because he does.

Game #39 Review: Flyers 1 @ Kings 2(SO) 1/3/09

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Down, but happy.

This game never really seemed to get out of first gear, not entirely surprising given that the Flyers probably burned out their clutch in that second period of the Ducks game. Decent but unspectacular goaltending foiled far below spectacular offense from both sides. And a point is a point. And three out of four points in California is not bad. It's not perfect by any means, but we feel better about it when we come up with excuses.

Some quick thoughts...

• FIFTH straight road sell-out. In another market with mediocre attendance. Flyers = America's Team?
• A point is better than no point. Especially when that one point puts you in sole possession of first in the Atlantic for the first time all season, with a Rangers loss to the Caps last night.
• The Flyers are absurdly injured at this point. When Luca Sbisa is forced to play forward, you're having injury problems. When Luca Sbisa is a STARTING forward, it's gotten completely out of hand. Gone is "Broad Street Bullies" for the time being, we've got "Team Red Cross" now.
• He's been ultra solid in regulation, but Antero Niittymaki has been exposed as an awful shootout goalie. Pull to the right, let him go down, put it over his glove. The Devils did it twice to win, now the Kings did it twice to win. I think some thought has to be given (at least come March or so when things get tighter) to putting Biron in net for shootouts. Hey, it worked for Gordon Bombay and Julie Gaffney...

• As bad as Niittymaki is at 1-on-0's, , Scott Hartnell is infinitely worse. He has gotten an amazing number of breakaways in the past few games, and always manages to make an ass of himself. I laughed when he got awarded a penalty shot, and had absolutely zero confidence in him doing anything but embarrassing himself. Especially in a situation like a penalty shot where there's no backcheckers, he should just wind up between the dots and rip a slapshot, which is by far his best weapon. Save himself the humiliation. Hartnell's on pace for thirty goals, but he might as well just dump and chase if he finds himself alone inside the blueline.
• As it's abundantly clear from the locker room interviews... ...it's good to see the Flyers staying calm and grounded. Let's hope they get their pulses up a little bit though before they play the Caps, though.

Flyers flew home to Philly for a day or so back home before hopping on the train south to DC. I would say that returning to Philadelphia makes this a seperate road trip if anyone asked me (no one asked me).

There will be a lot of good memories returning to Verizon Center to face the Caps. A lot. Even that beer bottle to Carter's head.

Game #39 Preview: Flyers @ Kings 1/3/09

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Flyers take the freeway down to the House of Kobe for the second of back-to-back games in Southern California, this time against the less-than-regal Los Angeles Kings, who currently rest at fourteenth in the West.

Why The Flyers Will Win:

• The Flyers are playing with a lot of confidence now, even if they're not playing their best technically. And Los Angeles is not good enough to beat a confident team.
• I have a hunch that newly minted forward Luca Sbisa is gonna score like five goals tonight. Against Anaheim he was bouncing around like a ping pong ball, and managed to put himself in the net, if not the puck. By the second game he should have the hang of it.
• Now that La Barbera got traded, I can name exactly TWO Kings players, Stamkos and Handzus. I like 'Zus a lot, but no way he's enough for them to win this.

Why The Kings Will Win:

• The Flyers won last night, but they played anything but solid hockey. The offense-only game last night was a lot of fun to watch, but it's not a style that's gonna lead to any long term success. If the Flyers don't clean up their defense some (lookin' at you, Randy Jones)Jones), they could be in trouble.

Goin' to Rangers @ Caps tonight in DC. Here's hoping they both lose.

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.