The Philadelphia Flyers won two of their four games this week. They were able to record comeback victories over the New York Islanders and the Montreal Canadiens, but they lost and were thoroughly outplayed by both the Carolina Hurricanes and the New York Rangers. It seems as if ever since Brayden Schenn broke his foot by blocking a shot, the rest of the team has been dropping like flies, missing a few games or weeks here or there. Chris Pronger has missed the last four games with a virus, Jaromir Jagr was out with a lower-body injury before returning too soon …
Atlantic Watch: 11/16-11/22
Matt Read provided an excellent game-winning goal for the Flyers on Thursday, but that was the only good news Philly received all week as they are currently enduring a two-game losing streak with several key players missing the lineup in the process. Chris Pronger, Braydon Coburn, and Jaromir Jagr are important players on the Flyers’ roster. Jagr plays an important role in Philly’s most productive offensive trio, while the defense must rely on AHL call-ups when both Pronger and Coburn are absent from the lineup. Negative results were witnessed when all these players were not available at the same time …
Flight Plan Week of 11.20.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers were on a pretty good run, collecting points in eight straight games. That streak dated all the way back to October 27 when they played the Winnipeg Jets in a wild game where 17 goals were scored and the Flyers ended up losing 9-8. As fate would have it, their most recent loss in regulation would also come at the hands of the Jets, by a score of 6-4 on Saturday. For some reason, Peter Laviolette cannot win games against either the Jets or the Atlanta Thrashers, doing so only once in his tenure as the head …
Flight Plan Week of 11.13.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers lost their only game of last week by a score of 2-1 in overtime against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Never mind that the bizarre tactics employed by Peter Laviolette’s team to try to break the Bolts out of their 1-3-1 neutral zone trap ended up making the game look like a Mexican standoff. Instead, think about how the Flyers are now in third place in the Atlantic Division, below both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers, all because they stopped pressing in a game where they clung to a 1-0 lead through a good portion of the game and …
Atlantic Watch: 11/2-11/8
The Flyers may have absolutely clobbered the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night, and the Flyers may have only been a shootout goal or two away from going 3-0-0 this week, but these three games weren’t the best Flyers team we’ve seen all season. Before their Saturday night massacre against the worst team in the league, the Flyers may have played 125 minutes as well as participate in a shootout in their first two games, but they really only showed up for a total of about 20 minutes. Inability to play a full 60 minutes was a problem last year’s Flyers …
Atlantic Watch: 10/26-11/1
The week opened up roughly, but it ended smoothly as the Flyers seem to be moving towards playing better after a 5-1 win at home against the Carolina Hurricanes. Giving up 14 goals in back-to-back nights, the Flyers lost in inexplicable fashion to two currently horrendous teams, who are both experiencing difficulties in play and personnel. Rebounding back from those two horrific losses, the Flyers spanked Carolina with both Danny Briere and Chris Pronger out of the lineup. The Flyers began the real Halloween horror show by suffering a 5-1 defeat in Montreal last Wednesday, giving the lowly Habs their first road win …
Flight Plan Week of 10.30.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers split their four games this week. After a big win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Flyers dropped a bad one to the Montreal Canadiens where they looked all sorts of out of sorts against a team who was desperate for a win. Then, the Flyers continued looking discombobulated up until the end of the second period against the Winnipeg Jets in a crazy 17-goal back-and-forth shoot out at the Wells Fargo Center, the Jets barely getting out of dodge with a win they should have had locked up. Wrapping up the week, Philadelphia was able to …
Flight Plan Week of 10.23.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers started out of the gate as one of the hottest teams in the National Hockey League, winning four of their first five games and getting points in all five of them. Since then, they have suffered two embarrassing (though in different ways) back-to-back losses on home ice at the hands of the Washington Capitals and the St. Louis Blues. To lose to the Capitals by a score of 5-2 when they’re one of the hotter teams in the NHL at the beginning of the season, and just about every bounce goes the way of the opposition, well …
Atlantic Watch: 10/6-10/11
Philly started off the season with a 2-1 win against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins in Beantown, then recorded a dominant 3-0 shutout in New Jersey to end a 101-game drought during the regular season and playoffs combined. After giving up the first goal of the NHL season to Brad Marchand, the Flyers scored two goals in the final minute of the first period. Claude Giroux dangled his way to a goal with 50 seconds left, while Jakub Voracek scored with only three seconds to go on a turn around shot in the slot. Fortunately for Philly, this would be all they needed as Ilya …
Alive at 45?
While us penguins continue to wilt in the usual Northeastern Summer heat, pining for the days when a cool iceberg awaits our collectively scorched behinds, thoughts about the upcoming (and too far off) season still seep their way into our Sun-addled brains. This is the third in a five-part series which intends to examine the ways the Flyers front office, though publicly professing to want to win the Cup by any means necessary, just ends up conducting business as usual year in and year out. The facts are simple and impressive. In 3,424 total regular-season games, the Orange and Black have played to …