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 …
Another One Bites the Dust
Once again, a minor-league hockey club within getaway distance has decided to fold its tent. The New Jersey Devils announced on Wednesday that their ECHL affiliate in Trenton will suspend operations, starting with the 2011-12 season. A release on the team’s website said the Devils are “restructuring the organization’s player development system to be more in line with other NHL franchises.” The Trenton Devils are the only club in the ECHL, which is the next tier down from the American Hockey League, which is wholly owned by their NHL parent club. Founded as the Trenton Titans in 1999 as an …
Atlantic Watch: 4/6-4/12
With only two games this week, the Flyers went 1-0-1 capturing the Atlantic Division title. Although they still aren’t playing their best hockey, the Flyers hung on to second place in the conference for a first-round playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres. With the first game scheduled for tomorrow, the Flyers hope to benefit from having home-ice advantage. Even though they played one of their best periods in the week, the Flyers had only a 1-0 lead going into the second period Friday night in Buffalo. After both teams scored a pair of goals in the middle period, a ridiculous …
Atlantic Watch: 3/30-4/5
If panic hadn’t set in yet, it definitely has now. In a week they had four games to help better their chances of winning both the division and the conference, the Flyers lost every game managing to only gain one point all week long. Adding on to the recent worries about playing lazy and horrible lately, the talent of the teams who beat Philly this week should also cause the Flyers to panic. Playing three teams out of the playoff race, the Flyers dropped their games with Atlanta, New Jersey, and Ottawa in regulation. They were able to salvage a point …
Elias Nets Hat-Trick, Flyers Lose Second Straight
For the second straight night, the Flyers were handed a loss by a team currently not in the playoff picture as the Devils won 4-2 in Jersey. He may have not scored the game-winning goal, but Patrik Elias essentially won the game for the Devils netting a hat-trick. Brian Rolston had all three of the primary assists on Elias’s goals and Johan Hedberg made 34 saves on 36 shots to give the Devils their third win of the season against the Flyers. With the Penguins and Capitals idle tonight, the Flyers had a chance to move closer to clinching both the division and …
Atlantic Watch: 3/23-3/29
How fitting is it that Scott Hartnell scored the goal last night against the Penguins (in Pittsburgh) that may have saved the division title for the Flyers? Just when it looked as though the Flyers were gearing up to sleepwalk through another game in their free fall from the top, the most despised player in Pittsburgh scores a game shifting goal to start a string of four unanswered goals putting Philly in a more spacious lead at the top of the Atlantic. Hartnell didn’t score the game-winner, but his goal did seem to wake the team up as Claude Giroux scored the eventual game-winner only forty-seven seconds …
Flight Plan week of 03.27.2011
Two out of three ain’t bad… If you win that is. Unfortunately for the Philadelphia Flyers, they lost two of their three games this past week as they continue to struggle with consistency issues within games and positionally. The Flyers, as a team, played one of their better games in the second half of the season against the Washington Capitals, however the performances by both starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and relief goaltender Brian Boucher were lackluster to say the least. Still, the Orange and Black were able to skate off the ice with one of the two available points to …
Atlantic Watch: 3/17-3/22
For the second straight week the Flyers obtained at least a point in each game they played. Posting a record of 1-0-2 in three games that all went to shootouts, the Flyers have now earned a point in seven straight games going 4-0-3 in that span. This week, shootout losses to the Thrashers and the Caps featuring a shootout win over the Stars in between gave Philly four out of the six possible points available. The four points were enough to give Philly the first playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. Danny Briere scored the game-tying goal with only a …
Flight Plan Week of 03.20.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers haven’t looked all that good recently, but they haven’t looked all that bad either. In their last five games, they’ve been able to muster up just enough effort and offense to get points in six of their last seven games and have even squeezed five out of a possible six in their last three contests. The big shootout win in Dallas was a little bit overshadowed by their inability to cap a comeback against the Atlanta Thrashers with a win in OT which saw Danny Briere score two goals including one with just 1:28 left in the …
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 …