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 …
Atlantic Watch: 10/19-10/25
To say this was a rough week for the Flyers would be an understatement. They managed to pull out one victory this week, but it came at the cost of losing Chris Pronger to a nasty eye injury. Embarrassing losses to the Washington Capitals and St. Louis Blues provided a rough taste of reality for the Flyers, a team that had yet to experience much adversity since their hectic roster shuffle in the offseason. Despite all the negative aspects of this week for Philly, the Flyers are still second in the Atlantic Division and fourth in the Eastern Conference with 11 …
Atlantic Watch: 10/12-10/18
Three more games for the Flyers this week resulted in five more points in the standings. Losing their first game of the year in overtime to the Kings, the Flyers are no longer perfect on the season. However, since they won their other games in the week, the Flyers still haven’t lost in regulation this season. Sure, it’s upsetting to lose a game like Saturday’s to Los Angeles, a team featuring former Philly teammates Mike Richards and Simon Gagne, but it’s important to earn points early in the year. It’s also important to see many of the young players stepping …
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 …
Flight Plan 04.03.2011
Sometime in June, anybody who cares about hockey played in North America will look back on the 2010-2011 season and try to analyze numbers and streaks and teams and players and everything. All of them will search to find turning points and why a struggling team got it together or why a team that had been good all year fell apart or why a team that was good all year turned it up a notch in the playoffs and won it all. Right now, anything anybody says is purely speculation. In June however, everything everybody says will be based on …
Atlantic Watch: 3/9-3/16
It’s difficult to believe the Flyers had a rough week when they obtained five out of the possible six points this week, but an injury to Chris Pronger has caused some concern inside the Philly locker room. Tuesday Pronger had surgery to insert a small screw into his right hand to help repair a fracture. The surgery will sideline the big man for three to four weeks, which coincidentally will be around the beginning of the playoffs. Needing to find ways to win without the veteran blue liner, Philly went 2-0-1 in their first three games without Pronger. If it …
Flight Plan 03.06.2011
Every team in the NHL will go through lulls in their season where they won’t win games. They can play their best hockey of the season and still not get the bounces. For the Philadelphia Flyers, that isn’t the case. They’re playing terrible hockey. They’re not working harder than the other team. They’re not shutting teams down when they need to. They’re not scoring key goals. They’re not clicking on the power play. They can’t break out of the zone. They don’t get better, but worse as the game progresses. They just can’t keep their focus and right now they …
Flight Plan 02.20.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers won two of the three games they had last week and in only one of the games was the score separated by more than a goal after the final buzzer. If you weren’t sure that it was almost that time of year, you are now. The games will get tighter, they will mean more, two point games can now be viewed as four point games, and some team may even get in to the playoffs on a shootout win in the last game of the season. The great thing about hockey, particularly the NHL, is that somehow …
Atlantic Watch: 1/19-1/26
Every Wednesday morning I’ll be taking a look at what our division rivals have done within the past week. A look at scores, injuries, and major events to sum up what you as a Flyers’ fan should know about our rivals.