Crunch time for the Flyers

The Flyers control their own fate at this point.  They could have been challenging Ottawa for the fifth seed, but they faltered found themselves as close to being out of the playoff picture as they could possibly make it.  They lost to the Islanders, a team they’ve beaten time after time just by showing up.  But then they came back with a strong game against the Habs only to find themselves on the wrong end of a great goaltending performance.

Fortunately, the Flyers responded well to that loss and put in another strong effort against the Red Wings and pulled off a key 4-3 victory yesterday afternoon.  Many have chalked it up to the Wings playing Osgood, their backup goalie, instead of Jimmy Howard.  Does Howard give the Wings a better chance of winning than Osgood?  Of course he does, but the Flyers weren’t exactly playing with Bernie Parent.  Good teams will still win even with their backup goalie in, and the Red Wings didn’t bend for the Flyers yesterday, the Flyers were simply the better team.

The Flyers took advantage of a soft goal in the first few second of the game and kept pouring on the pressure.  While Osgood should have stopped Carcillo’s first shot, he also made some tough saves to even keep the Wings in the game early on.  But once the Wings gathered themselves, they showed why they hadn’t lost a game in regulation in the past twelve and tied the game by the time the first period was over.  Personally, I started to get a bad feeling about the game.  Over the past few weeks, the Flyers have been terrible with dealing with adversity of any time.  Calling them a fragile team was an understatement.

But the Flyers did something out of the ordinary for themsevles.  They came out in the second period and scored.  A goal in the first minute in each of the two opening periods?  That can’t be a bad thing.  They jumped on a Detroit turnover, caused by a strong forecheck, and Claude Giroux potted the loose puck into the top corner.  Osgood had no chance.  And they they kept the pressure up and Arron Asham later added a slam dunk goal that Osgood had even less of a chance on.  For the rest of the game, the Flyers survived the Red Wing onslaught and held on for two points.

That was the effort that the Flyers are capable of giving.  It’s all about confidence.  The Flyers need to keep plugging away and win these last three games in order to develop some type of momentum for the playoffs.  The many injuries to the goalies really stinks.  Ray Emery was playing well, then he got injured.  Michael Leighton was winning game after game…and then he got injured.  Johan Backlund was looking very good against the Penguins, and then he got injured.  Brian Boucher hasn’t been that good overall, but he’s been playing behind a team with shattered confidence.  Good teams will overcome a soft goal here or there, but when a team is questioning themselves, a soft goal can kill their chances in a game.

Boucher is not the guy I’d want leading my team into the playoffs, but he’s what the Flyers have.  If the Flyers don’t play well in front of Boucher, then there’s no excuse about the goalie being the problem for an early exit.  If Boucher plays terribly in the playoffs, well, did anyone expect him to carry the team?  If he plays well, then that’s great.

The ball’s in the Flyers’ court.  They play the Maple Leafs next, a team they have to beat, no question about it.  I don’t care that they’ve been winning some games, a team with their playoff hopes on the line HAS to beat the last place team in the conference.  And then the Flyers play two games against the Rangers to close the season.  It could be a case of win and you’re in.  Fortunately for the Flyers, they will more than likely hold the win tiebreaker if it comes down to that.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  The Rangers play a solid Sabres team tomorrow night.   A win puts them in a good spot while a loss could spell a whole lot of trouble.  The next two days will shed a lot of light on the playoff situation in the Eastern Conference.

Flyers Goalie Situation: Is Michael Leighton the Guy?

First of all, congratulations to Canada on winning the gold.  Also, congratulations to the US team for an amazing tournament.  As an American, I was severely disappointed that we didn’t win the gold, but I’m darn proud of my team for proving many critics wrong and coming one goal away from the gold medal.  It was a great tournament for hockey and its fans.
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Has there ever been a season where the Philadelphia Flyers have not had a goalie controversy?  Personally, I thought this was finally the year that all of that talk would be put to rest.  Ray Emery started the season on fire but was overcome with an injury that forced him to the shelf for awhile.  He came back, but was unable to play through the injuries again.  He’s now on the long term IR.  While many people will say that that Emery Experiment has been a failure, I’m not so sure of that.  People predicted that Emery would play poorly and/or would cause locker room problems.  Neither has been the case.  Before he was put on the LTIR, the Flyers were about ready to sign him to an extension, so he must have done something right.  Is Emery the goalie of the future for the Flyers?  Probably not, but he’s not bad as a short term solution until the Flyers are able to acquire “the guy.”

The Flyers might have made the best (or luckiest, I don’t really care which) waiver wire pickup of the year in acquiring Michael Leighton.  Leighton went from a fringe backup goalie to the starter for the Flyers almost overnight.  Of course that was helped along by injuries to Emery and Brian Boucher, but give credit where credit is due, he’s really made the best of his opportunity.  In 18 games played for the Flyers, Leighton holds an excellent 12-3-1 record to go along with equally excellent GAA of 2.19 and save percentage of .925.  I’ve always maintained that Leighton is no more than a backup goalie in the NHL, but I don’t care who you are, those stats are great.  It comes down to wins, and Leighton’s delivered there.  And two of those losses came in scores of 1-0 and 2-1.  The bottom line is that Leighton has give the Flyers the chance to win every single night he’s played.

What I’ve failed to mention so far might be one of the more important reasons why Leighton’s been so good.  The defense has been stellar for the Flyers since Leighton’s taken over.  Chris Pronger’s been solid all year and Kimmo Timonen has picked up his game to where he’s been in previous seasons.  Lukas Krajicek has been another great pickup for the Flyers and has teamed up with Timonen for a very strong second pairing tandem.  In addition to the solid play by the back end, the forwards have also picked up the slack as well.  The return of Blair Betts from injury has given the Flyers the shut down fourth line again.  Betts has played so well that the Flyers have rewarded him with a two year contract extension.  It’s a team defense and it’s working.

With the trade deadline tomorrow, rumors have been flying regarding the Flyers goaltending situation.  Dan Ellis and Tomas Vokoun have been mentioned as very much on the radar for the Flyers.  Tomas Vokoun has been a strong goaltender his entire career and I would welcome him to the Flyers, but I’m just not sure the Flyers have the pieces or the cap space to land him.  Vokoun’s cap hit is $5.7 million.  Since waiving both Danny Syvret and Riley Cote and placing Emery on the LTIR, the Flyers have given themselves some room under the cap with between $2 and 3 million, but they’ll still have to shed some space in order to fit Vokoun.  Another issue is that Vokoun has a no trade clause, but according to Eklund, he is apparently willing to waive it.

But I’m not sure that the Flyers have the pieces to really land anyone.  In the upcoming 2010 Entry Draft, the first pick for the Flyers isn’t until the third round.  They really can’t afford to give up any more picks in the next two drafts as they really need to develop talent in their system since Kevin Marshall and Marc-Andre Bourdon are really the only prospects worth mentioning right now.  The higher-paid forwards on the Flyers that could be considered as trade bait all have no trade clauses on their contracts as well.  Briere, Gagne, and Hartnell would all have to approve deals.  But should the Flyers really be thinking about trading away top six talent right now?  And I very much doubt that the Flyers would at all consider trading away young talent in Claude Giroux or James van Riemsdyk for a quick fix in net.  For some reason Jeff Carter’s name always appears in trade rumors, but I just don’t see the Flyers trading the guy.  So I’m not even going to get into that.

The only tradeable players that the Flyers have are Braydon Coburn, Ryan Parent, and Oskars Bartulis.  Once Parent returns from injury, someone will have to be the odd man out.  The Flyers are apparently willing to deal Parent, since his name has been brought up in rumored deals for Dan Hamhuis of the Nashville Predators.   The thing is that none of these guys are enough to pry a guy like Vokoun away from the Panthers, even with a strong prospect involved.  As a note, players picked up off waivers are not eligible to be traded, so neither Michael Leighton nor Lukas Krajicek are going anywhere via trades.

So where does this leave the Flyers?  I believe that they have to go with Leighton.  He’s not the goalie of the future, but he’s a earned himself a chance to lead the team through the playoffs.  He’s won games…so is there really anything else you can ask the guy to do?  The Flyers might not even have a choice with their personnel and draft picks situation, but I’d rather them worry about the goalie of the future in the offseason rather than at the trade deadline when they’ll find themselves in bidding wars and less choices than they’d like.

We’ll find out what’s going to happen in the next 24 hours or so.

FSN Pittsburgh Doesn’t Send Video

This is a huge story.

But it’s not really being reported.  On Thursday night during the Flyers/Penguins game, Simon Gagne thought he scored a shorthanded goal.  It was ruled no goal by the refs on the ice, and by no fault of their own.  And after watching the replays on CSN Philadelphia, I, as well as many other Flyers fans, thought it was a goal too.  It was clear that Brent Johnson pushed the puck out of the net with the pad.  However, after review, the War Room in Toronto claimed their was inconclusive evidence to overturn the call on the ice.  Really?

Yes, really.  Based on the replays they saw, they could never see the puck in the net.  That’s because FSN Pittsburgh never sent all of the angles they had.  They only showed the good angle until after the call was made.  But the NHL has access to every angle!  Well, no, they don’t.  Apparently, they only get the home team’s feed for the games in Toronto.  So really, the home team has the power to send only the angles they want to.

Click here for the story on Philly.com.

This is cheating.  It’s plain and simple.  Whoever is responsible for this within FSN Pittsburgh should immediately be fired.  It’s a disgrace to the Penguins, the NHL, and the integrity of the game.  In addition to this, the NHL should severely fine FSN Pittsburgh or at least give them some sort of other punishment.  As of now, I have seen no sort of apology or statement from the Pittsburgh Penguins.  That’s a shame.  The Penguins should immediately distance themselves from this sort of behavior.

And after the NHL punished FSN Pittsburgh, they should slap themselves in the face.  Who on earth would think it’s a good idea to leave it up to the home team to send the feeds?  You don’t think that anyone would ever be tempted to try to abuse the system?  I’d bet this isn’t the first time this has happened somewhere in the league.  It’s stories like this that just shows how inept the NHL management is.

The worst part is that the NHL won’t do anything about this.  No one’s really reporting this, so I guess they’re off the hook?  They’re just so lucky that it didn’t affect the outcome of the game.  Can you imagine if it were an overtime goal or if the Penguins ended up winning the game?  But that’s precisely why the NHL won’t do anything about it.  They’ve shown this behavior countless times before.  How many dirty hits have we seen with the NHL justifying not suspending the hitter because the victim was uninjured?  Does the NHL sweep things under the rug because they don’t want to deal with the criticism?  Do they think they’ll lose credibility as a league if people hear about this?  No, the league is losing credibility because they fail to address some serious issues in the league.

Nobody wants this cheating happening.  Time for the NHL to step it up and do something.  I won’t hold my breath though.

Flyers at Rangers Tonight

Roller coasters are great.  Up and down, side to side, sometimes upside down.  You never know where you’re going next.  That’s great at a theme park, but not for a hockey team.  This season, we’ve seen the Flyers absolutely dominate teams for a large stretch in the beginning of the season.  And then we’ve seen them be dominated.  That’s not even really a roller coaster.  That ride would be called “Frustration.”  Now the Flyers are on a bit of a winning streak, claiming victories in each of their last three games.  A lot of people are saying “Well, you know, the wins are nice, but they’ve been against the Lightning, Hurricanes, and Islanders.  Not exactly the best talent in the league.”

I won’t argue those points.  The teams that the Flyers have recently beaten aren’t anything close to the cream of the NHL.  However, it was just so important that the Flyers actually won some games.  They were playing with no confidence, especially on the offensive side.  But when the puck starts to go into the net and W’s start going onto the board, I don’t care who beat, as long as you’re beating someone.  Now the Flyers can go into a game like tonight’s against the Rangers and look back and see a few wins strung together.

The last time the Flyers played the Rangers, Henrik Lundqvist was just so good it was unfair.  However, it was in the middle of horrible performance by the offense after another.  King Henrik will be facing a bit more confident team this time around.  And with their full compliment of forwards available, the Flyers can roll four lines all game long.

That’s really the key to tonight’s game.  Can the Flyers play a game where all four lines can contribute in some way to the success of the team?  Vinny Prospal’s out for the Rangers, so that takes away a top-end threat from their lineup.  But there’s that guy named Marian Gaborik who’s been pretty good this year.  The checking line will have their hands full with him if they can get the matchups.  However, they do have something to built off since the Flyers neutralized Gaborik in their first meeting.

Jeff Carter and his line of Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell have hit their stride recently.  In order for the Flyers to have success, Jeff Carter needs to continue to score goals.  He’s getting open for shots recently, and his deadly wrist shot has looked, well, deadly.  When Jeff Carter is on top of his game, blowing by surprised defensemen on the rush, playing physically, and being a relentless puck hound, the Flyers are a very tough team to beat.  When teams have to focus on shutting him down especially, it opens up scoring opportunities for guys like Richards, Giroux, Gagne, etc.

The Rangers have been so-so as of late, going 4-3-3 in their last 10 games.  If you can shut down Marian Gaborik, you’ve got a good shot at winning the game.  After Gaborik’s 49 points, the next highest points total belongs to Prospal, with 32.  But he’s injured.  So the next active highest points total is 20.  It’s Michael Del Zotto.  12 of those 20 points came in October.  The Rangers have trouble scoring.  Gaborik is the only player with double-digit goals.  But as a team, the Rangers seem to get a little bit of offense from everyone.  Remember, they’ve only scored one less goal than the Flyers have all year.  The difference that supports the Flyers is that they have a lot of talent and potential to be putting up better numbers.  Outside of the first line, I don’t think you can say the same about the Rangers (and that’s why Lundqvist is so valuable).

If the Flyers can roll all four lines, stay out of the box, and finish the scoring chances they get, they should be in good shape.  The defense and goaltending has been fine, even with Michael Leighton in net.  There’s nothing tells me that should change.

Mike Richards’ hit on David Booth

I’m sure that everyone’s seen the hit.  David Booth was cutting through the middle of the zone just past the blue line.  He passed the puck off to the wing and Richards just leveled him.

According to Paul Holmgren, Richards will not be disciplined by the NHL.

First of all, let me say that I hope that David Booth makes a speedy recovery.

In my opinion, what happened was a hockey play with an unfortunate result.  Mike Richards makes a lot of big hits catching players with their heads down.  But they are never dirty hits and they are never cheapshots.  Richards is a hardnosed and intense player who respects the game and the players.  He has no history of cheap play.

Now let me break down the hit.  A lot of people say it’s a late hit.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  Richards hit Booth about a half second after the puck was gone.  There’s nothing wrong with that, as Richards was already committed to making the hit.  Calling it late is really stretching it to find something wrong with the hit.  Richards doesn’t take any strides to try to gain speed to hit Booth.  He coasts for quite some time before delivering the hit.  And when he does deliver the hit, he keeps his feet on the ice, his elbows tucked in, his hands down, and his shoulder down.  And he doesn’t “flick” up his shoulder to drive through the player like many players who commit cheapshots do.  Richards was backchecking through the middle and stepped up to eliminate Booth from the play.  Based on this, it was a perfectly clean hit.  However, Richards connected mostly with Booth’s head.

Headshots are nasty, plain and simple.  No one ever wants to see them and the NHL should do it’s best to get them out of the game.  Richards is ultimately responsible for where his hits land, whether he intends to injure Booth or not.  Personally, I don’t think there was any intent to injure.  It’s easy to fall into the slow motion trap, which makes a hit look a lot worse than it actually is.  Hockey is a fast game, and had Booth turned his shoulder just slightly, Richards probably would have gotten all shoulder.  Maybe Richards anticipated that Booth would see him or have his body positioned otherwise.  But the thing is, we really don’t know what was going through Richards’ head.  We can speculate all we want, but the only one who knows what Mike Richards’ intentions were are Mike Richards.  Saying definitively what he was trying to do either way is silly and takes us nowhere.  This wasn’t a Steve Downie on Dean McAmmond type hit or an elbow to the chops, this was a (like it or not) 100% legal hit.  However, legality doesn’t always guarantee cleanliness.

The other thing that needs to be discussed about the hit is what David Booth did.  They teach it from when you first start playing hockey: Skate with your head up!  I don’t mean it to sound like some he-man type attitude.  It’s more self-preservation than anything else.  Other players are trying to hit you and they’re trying to hit you hard.  They may not be trying to injure you, but they really want to make you think twice about doing what you’re trying to do again.  In this case, it was cutting across the middle.  A player really needs to protect himself and always keep his head on a swivel, especially in dangerous areas.  Look at football, it’s the same thing.  If you go through the middle of the field, there are several players looking to crush you, and for the same reasons as they do in hockey.  Many times if a player feels the pressure, he’ll immediately drop and curl up to avoid a big hit.  And the anticipation of a big hit also leads some receivers to develop “alligator arms.”  On top of going through the middle, what made it even worse was that Booth turned around to look at his pass.  But what’s interesting to me is that it looked as though Booth was looking directly in Richards’ direction, then turned his head.  Did he not see him coming?  Did he not think Richards would try to hit him?  Like we don’t know what went through Richards’ mind, we don’t know what went through Booth’s.  But we do know that Booth’s responsible to protect himself, and he didn’t.

The best thing for Richards to do is simply put this behind him, especially if he didn’t have any intentions to hurt Booth.  He can’t afford to lose the edge to his game because he’s constantly afraid that he’s going to hurt someone.  Let me compare this to a baseball scenario.  When a batter squares around to bunt with a man on third the pitcher is supposed to throw the ball high and inside.  The point is not to hit the batter, it’s to force him to bail out, or at worst, induce a popup.  Once in awhile, the ball might actually hit the batter.  Should the pitcher be punished or never throw inside again?  Of course not.  He’s got to put it behind him and keep going.

I haven’t seen what the NHL’s reasoning behind not suspending Richards is.  Since it was a legal hit, I would assume that they felt he had no malicious intentions.  However, something does need to be done about headshots in the game.  All three parties all responsible for the safety of the players: the hitters have to make sure they’re not getting chin with their shoulders, the players on the receiving end have to make sure they adequately protect themselves, and the league has to ensure the safety of the players.  I’ve discussed the first two points, but not the league’s involvement yet.  The league needs a comprehensive set of rules that makes it very clear what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.  And what’s more, and most important, is that the league MUST consistently enforce these rules.  Until the league does this, the league’s disciplinary system will be a joke.

The league has been just completely inconsistent with handing out discipline.  Is it a star player?  Was the player on the receiving end of the hit injured?  And if so, how badly?  Each of those questions should have absolutely nothing to do with how the league should handle questionable hits.  It should be based on exactly what the hitter does and what their intent can best be determined as.  I’ve seen too many times that a filthy hit goes unpunished because the victim of the hit popped right back up.  It’s backwards logic and just asking for some players to go over the line.  Star power should ignored as well.  How does Chris Simon get 30 games for stomping on someone’s leg while Chris Pronger only gets 8?  And the worst part is, the NHL wasn’t going to discipline Pronger at first.  Another example are the similar slewfoots given by Ovechkin and Artyukhin.  They were both virtually the same play, but Ovechkin only got a small fine.  All of this garbage with extent of the injury and name on the back of jersey has to stop.

The league should adopt a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hits to the head, something where no interpretation is necessary.  A hit to the head equals whatever penalty they decide.  It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not.  When it comes to the health of the players, the league should have had a policy like this a long time ago.  It makes it so much easier for the league and they’ll catch a lot less flak when they make a decision.  In the case of something like the Richards hit, I think that the maximum penalty should be a 2 game suspension or a hefty fine.  Players who wind up in unfortunate situations when they try to do everything right don’t deserve to get heavy suspensions.  I even think that a two game suspension could be a bit much.  We don’t want our players to lose their edge and playing in fear of a suspension.  It’s something the league would have to figure out.  And naturally, if the hit itself was dirty and/or there were malicious intentions, then they can make the penalty for severe.  But as it stands, the league doesn’t do a good enough job, on many levels.

Hopefully David Booth can make a fast and full recovery.  Hopefully the players can learn to protect themselves a little better.  And hopefully the league can adopt a policy to protect its players.

Postgame: Flyers at Panthers

Well, I was wrong.

The Flyers just looked disinterested for good portions of the game.  That’s never a good thing.  I know that some people have been calling for the firing of John Stevens because of lack of emotion from the team, but shouldn’t the players be banging away on their own?

The Flyers did turn it on for the second half of the third period, but by then the Panthers had already effectively sealed off the middle of the ice in front of the net.  The Flyers had sustained pressure, like they did at points earlier in the game, but they just couldn’t really get the good scoring chances.  Earlier in the game, the Flyers had chances to score, but they hit a few points and otherwise came up short.

The injury to Ryan Parent didn’t help either.  He missed the final two periods of the game.  Danny Syvret usually doesn’t get much time on the ice, and he wasn’t really used all that much after Parent’s injury.  Maybe giving him (and Ole Tollefsen if Parent missed some time) more ice time will help spell the top 4 and give them some rest.

I predicted that the layoff would help the Flyers, but after watching the game, I think it did just the opposite.  I’m not making excuses for them, but when you don’t play hockey at the game’s pace for awhile, you lose your chops.  And now they have to wait until Thursday to play another game.  Got to work hard for the week until that game, boys.

There were some positives in the game, however.  Emery made some big saves to keep his team in the game.  The Flyers also did a pretty good job of staying out of the box, only being shorthanded three times, but Pronger’s slashing penalty was completely unnecessary.  And whaddayaknow, 9 seconds into the power play, the Panthers scored.  Giroux lighting up the lamp for the first time this year was also a good thing, rifling a nice shot off a feed from Simon Gagne.  And back from injury, James van Riemsdyk made an excellent play lifting the stick of a Panther and sliding the puck over to Arron Asham who then backhanded it high into the net.  And finally, Braydon Coburn played better than he has over the last few games, breaking up some dangerous-looking plays for the Panthers.

I can handle loses when the Flyers play hard for 60 minutes and the other team is just able to scratch out a win.  But I don’t like seeing efforts, or lack there of, like I saw tonight.  Maybe it’ll be a wakeup call for the team, I hope it is.

Flyers at Panthers

Call me crazy, but I think that the Flyers scheduling is atrocious right now.  One game in eleven days.  And this is when the scheduling is compressed as it is because of the Olympics.  But it is what it is.

The Flyers will be fresh off a long break to take on a disappointing Florida Panthers team.  The team has been in Florida over the past few days engaging in their yearly team-building activities, including fishing, sailing, and doing other Florida things…they’re some lucky guys.  Because of this, I expect them to be chomping at the bit and have a renewed sense of team spirit.

The Flyers will get a shot in the arm tonight with James van Riemsdyk being back in the lineup.  He’ll assume his position on the third line, but with some new linemates that he’s been practicing with this week.  Claude Giroux has been moved up to the first line to play with Simon Gagne and Mike Richards.  I like Giroux a lot better on a line with proven finishers.  That’s not a knock on anyone else he’s been playing with, but with Giroux’s talent, you want him in an environment where he can really flourish.

With the move, Mika Pyorala will take over the third line center position, flanked by JVR and Arron Asham.  This line won’t light it up on the scoreboard like the top two lines will, but I like the combination of skill, two-way presence, and grit that each player brings.

According to Bill Meltzer from Hockeybuzz.com, the Flyers lineup will look like this:

Simon Gagne – Mike Richards – Claude Giroux
Scott Hartnell – Jeff Carter – Danny Briere
James van Riemsdyk – Mika Pyorala – Arron Asham
Daniel Carcillo – Darroll Powe – Ian Laperriere

Chris Pronger – Matt Carle
Kimmo Timonen – Braydon Coburn
Ryan Parent – Danny Syvret or Ole Tollefsen

Ray Emery
Backup: Brian Boucher

At 1-4-0, the Panthers don’t have much to show for to start the year.  After perusing their stat sheet, no player has really taken the reigns offensively, and their top goal scorer David Booth only has one goal so far and only one point.  Michael Frolik is their leading scorer with 3 points and is the only player on the team with more than two.  The Flyers, on the other hand, have nine players with at least 3 points with both clubs playing 5 games so far this year.

That said, the Flyers of course cannot take this team, or any team, for that matter lightly.  Tomas Vokoun isn’t a bad goalie by any stretch of the imagination, so it won’t necessarily be a cakewalk offensively for the team despite Florida’s team GAA of 4.00.

I do think the Flyers should and will win this game with the Mike Richards line leading the way.

Welcome back, Flyers hockey.  Too bad you’ll be gone for almost another week after tonight.

And by the way, GO PHILLIES!!!

Two Tough Teams, Two Different Outcomes…And Now a Different Kind of Tough

The Flyers played their two most difficult games in their early season this week, first agains the Capitals and then against the Penguins.  In both games, defense kind of went out the window and the goals just piled up.

Coburn has struggle as of late.  His pants were taken down on by Alexander Semin on his goal.  He never had a chance.  And during the Penguins game, he struggled in the turnover department and even managed to put the puck into his own net, which proved very costly in a one-goal game.  Braydon Coburn is still a very young defenseman, so he’s going to have his growing pains, but he’s better than he’s been playing.  He’ll be tested tonight against a fierce Ducks team.

The biggest story of the game tonight will be the return of Joffrey Lupul and Luca Sbisa and Pronger’s first game against his former team.  Joffrey Lupul rounds out a group of talented forwards on the Ducks, including players like Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry (Will the Flyers remember his hit on Claude Giroux?), Teemu Selanne, and Bobby Ryan.

The Flyers will need to stay out of the box tonight against a potentially high-powered offense.  But really, the Ducks will have to keep their composure as well.  Both teams will want to dial it up physically, and there are bound to be a lot of penalties.  If the Flyers can stay disciplined and have good reactions if the Ducks start taking liberties, they can skew the amount of power plays in their favor.  If they get caught up in an eye-for-an-eye mentality, they’ll have to spend extra time shorthanded.

Flyers/Hurricanes Post-Game and Devils Pre-Game

The Flyers opened up the 2009-2010 season with an excellent victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh last night.  Ray Emery played a great game, looking very calm and composed for the full 60 minutes, not allowing many rebounds, and making saves with authority.  He was very active in the net, making sure that he could see each and every one of the shots coming his way.  He caught a few breaks with the post, but no pucks went into the net, and that’s all that matters.

It was great to see James van Riemsdyk record his first NHL point in his first NHL game.  He was also stopped on a partial breakaway by Cam Ward previous to his point.  He played under 10 minutes, but had a strong game.  Chris Pronger led the team in ice time in his first game as a Flyer with 27:41 TOI.

The Flyers took advantage of an extended power play to start the second period, potting two goals in quick succession.  Speaking of special teams, the Flyers penalty killing did a tremendous job in the game, killing off all eight power play opportunities the Hurricanes had.  But giving any team eight power play chances on a given night is simply way too much.  This was the only negative aspect of the game for the Flyers, and they really need to cut back on taking the penalties.

Overall, the Flyers played a very solid team game, especially defensively as the game wore on.  The Hurricanes put on a lot of pressure late in the game, but the Flyers were able to keep them from using the middle of the ice, holding them to the outside, which afforded Ray Emery better angles on shots and allowed their defense to more easily clean up the garbage in from of the net.

The Flyers will travel up to north Jersey tonight to take on division rivals New Jersey Devils.  According to Bill Meltzer on Hockeybuzz.com, the Flyers will be going with the same lineup as they did last night.  I wouldn’t be surprised, however, to see Arron Asham to take Daniel Carcillo’s spot though.  Carcillo took a stupid boarding penalty last night, and it would be foolish for the Flyers to give a team like the Devils too many powerplays.  Unfortunately for Carcillo, until he can prove that he can stay disciplined, he’s not going to be an every night player.  And on top of that, I’d like to see Arron Asham play against his former team…crazy things happen when a guy plays against his old team.

The key to the game tonight, as with any Devils game, is the first goal.  The Devils are extremely tough to beat when they score the first goal, because all they have to do is sit back and have Martin Brodeur keep them in the game.  And when their opponent starts to press, they hop on the mistakes and it winds up in the back of the net.

The Flyers will also have to find a way to stop New Jersey’s best forward in Zach Parise.  Fortunately for the Flyers, Patrick Elias will not be playing tonight as he continues to heal from his injury.  Despite their best effort, Parise will get his chances, and Emery will have to stand tall.

Flyers at Hurricanes

The Flyers start the season in Raleigh to play the Hurricanes tonight.  I’ll be doing an in-game analysis of the game as it goes.

Flyers lines and pairs:
Simon Gagne-Mike Richards-Mika Pyorala
Scott Hartnell-Jeff Carter-Danny Briere
James van Riemsdyk-Claude Giroux-Darroll Powe
Daniel Carcillo-Blair Betts-Ian Laperriere

Kimmo Timonen-Braydon Coburn
Chris Pronger-Matt Carle
Ryan Parent-Danny Syvret

Ray Emery
Johan Backlund

No surprises in the lineup and the lines and pairings are pretty much as expected.

First Period

Some nice pressure by the Flyers before Powe’s guilty of a slahsing penalty.  The Flyers kill it off well with Emery making a few saves.

Roughing call on Wallin after he took Carcillo to the corner.    Some chances for the Flyers, but they didn’t really get enough sustained pressure to really get that good chance.

Whoa, Chinese fire drill in front of Emery, and Staal wraps it in the net, but the refs blow it dead because of the hand pass.

Carcillo hits a guy from behind and Gleason fights him.  Not much of a scrap, though.  Gleason gets two for instigating and a 10 minute misconduct and Carcillo gets a minor for the hit.  Bad decision by the refs, Gleason was sticking up for a teammate after a bit of a dangerous hit.  Well, more like bad decision by the league in terms of the instigator.

Alberts just laid a huge hit on former teammate Jeff Carter.  Hartnell skated by Alberts to say a word to him.  Good form.

Ray Whitney gets the hook in on Richards and the refs makes an easy call.  Second powerplay for the Flyers.  Let’s see if they can pot one.  JVR gets stoned on a breakaway by Ward.  Some better pressure by the Flyers, but still no dice.

Pronger gets the free arm around a Cane and he heads to the box.  With about two minutes left in the period, this is a huge kill.  Giroux reads a cross ice pass and nearly gets a breakaway, but the defenseman caught up to it first.  Samsanov takes a penalty and that kills the rest of the powerplay.  Four minutes…it drew blood.

And that’ll do it for the first period.  No goals for either team and the Flyers outshot the Canes 15-8.  Cam Ward was the best player on the ice for either team.  He made some key saves.

The Flyers will start the second period with a 3+ minute powerplay.  It’ll be a nice opportunity to open up the scoring.

Second Period

Jeff Carter opens the first minute ramming the puck home next to Cam Ward, who thought he had it covered.  Good job by the refs to keep the whistles away and for Carter potting it.

And Mike Richards immediately follows it up with another PP goal on a nice shot from the wall.  JVR gets an assist, for his first NHL point.

2-0 Flyers

Flurry of pressure by the Canes and Emery makes a save or two.

The Hurricanes will go on a third powerplay with Hartnell being guily of interference and the Canes immediately hit the post.And the Flyers kill it.

And Carcillo’s going back to the box for a high stick on Wallin.  No blood, so he’s gone for two.  Failed clear by Gagne causes a bit of trouble, but he got it back and sent it down the ice.  Another kill for the Flyers.

Timonen makes a good defensive play but gets called for a penalty anyway.  The refs are calling a tight one.  And once again, the Flyers kill off what was the best PP by the Canes.

Aaron Ward gets shaken up blocking a shot and hobbles to the bench.

Brind’Amour heads to the box after a trip.  The Flyers can blow it open with a goal.  Big kill for the Canes.  The Canes kill a mostly uneventful powerplay.

And that’ll do it for the second period.  The Flyers score two PP goals early in the period for the only scoring in the game.

Third Period

Danny Syvret takes  a slashing penalty after some pressure by the Canes and the Flyers take care of it.

Carolina’s applying more and more pressure, but the Flyers have been able to keep them from getting quality chances.  Jokinen and Coburn both take penalties, so we’ll see some four on four play.

Pinball shot goes off the post for the Canes and the Flyers get a stroke of luck.

Coburn gets the gate for lifting the puck out of play.  The Flyers can’t let the Canes get some momentum with a goal here.  This is be an important kill for the Flyers.  The Canes did get set up for some time, but the Flyers did a good job of not really allowing any shots.  The Flyers are still perfect on the PK.

With a minute and some change left, the Hurricanes pull Cam Ward.  The Canes are putting a lot of traffic in and around Emery, but he’s standing tall.  And the refs find an interference penalty of Pronger with 36 seconds left in the game.

Final Score: Flyers 2, Hurricanes 0

Good job by the Flyers and excellent game by Ray Emery.  Welcome back to the NHL.