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 …
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: 3/23-3/29
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 …
JVR’s Hat-Trick Leads Flyers To 100 Points
James van Riemsdyk helped the Flyers end a two-game skid tonight by recording his first career hat-trick as Philly rolled to a 4-1 win over the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum. In addition to JVR’s three-goal night, both Jeff Carter and Claude Giroux had two points on Saturday. Scoring the opening goal, Carter assisted on JVR’s hat-trick tally in the third while Giroux posted two assists. Sergei Bobrovsky notched his second straight one-goal game, saving 36 of 37 on the night. The win pushed the Flyers over the 100-point mark on the season as their record sits at 45-19-10. The Orange and Black head home Sunday to face Northeast-leading Boston …
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 …
RICE & MICE: Hand fractures
Philadelphia Flyers defenseman, Chris Pronger was originally sidelined with some swelling in his hand after being hit by a puck on February 24, 2011 in a game against the New York Islanders. After x-rays failed to show a fracture, he returned to play after missing one game only to hit that same hand against the boards in a game on March 8, 2011 against the Edmonton Oilers. They are not sure if the break was initially caused by being hit with the puck in February, or if the fracture happened in the game against the Oilers, but a CT scan …
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 …
Cooke suspended for rest of regular season, first round of playoffs
The National Hockey League on Monday afternoon issued its sternest warning yet to players who seek to make contact with an opponent’s head. It has suspended Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke for the final 10 games of the regular season plus the entire first round of the playoffs. Cooke delivered an elbow to the side of the face of New York Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh at the 4:36 mark of the third period of Sunday’s 5-2 Penguins loss. He was given a major for elbowing and a game misconduct. The total length of the penalty will end up lasting between …
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 …