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 …
Callahan Scores Four, Losing Streak Reaches Four
In what was hands down their worst effort all year long, the Flyers were absolutely dominated by the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden by a 7-0 count, to extend their losing streak to a season-high four games. A career-high four-goal game from Ryan Callahan, including the game-winning goal inside the first minute of play, helped in the embarrassment of the Eastern Conference leaders on a gloomy Sunday. Mats Zuccarello added on two while Artem Anisimov had a goal as well, while Henrik Lundqvist recorded a twenty-four save shutout. Unlike Saturday’s matinee setback, the Flyers got off to a …
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 …
Flyers Hold On For 4-2 Win In NY
Opening Hockey Day in America, the Flyers continued their seasonal domination of the Rangers beating them 4-2 for their fourth straight win over New York. Jeff Carter and Claude Giroux both had a goal and an assist today leading Philly to victory, despite the orange and black getting out shot 39-24. The win improves the Flyers’ record to 39-15-5. After a very uneventful opening twelve minutes, the Rangers were the first team to score. Brian Boucher failed to clear the puck as the Rangers gained control of it behind the net leading to a few offensive chances. As Ryan McDonagh shot …
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: 1/26-2/2
Since the All-Star break spanned from Thursday to Monday, this will indeed be a very brief Atlantic Watch. For the Flyers, the lone game of the week was a rather embarrassing one. After allowing a goal nineteen seconds into the game and another one a minute later, the Flyers found themselves on the wrong side of a 4-0 shutout to their newly found nightmare in the Tampa Bay Lightning. The loss dropped the Flyers to 33-13-5 on the season and 0-3-0 against Tampa on the season. Apparently, the recipe to stream a line of victories against Philly is an aging …
Flight Plan week of 01.16.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers did pretty decently on last week’s road trip going 2-1-0. Their loss to the Boston Bruins was a bit hard to swallow but the team were absolutely able to wipe it from their memories by the time they arrived in Atlanta to face the Atlanta Thrashers the next day and won by a decisive 5-2 score. The Flyers have four games this week and have five games coming up in their next eight days. Normally this would be a good thing for a team that clearly plays better when they have a bunch of games together rather …
Flight Plan Week of 12.12.2010
As of writing this preview the Philadelphia Flyers have gotten five of the six points available through three of the four games thus far this week and will try for seven of eight against the Boston Bruins today. Unfortunately, the Flyers should have gotten all six of the points available however they coughed up a third period lead for the second time in two weeks and this was a little bit more distressing. The Flyers had a two-goal lead going into the final stanza and they even extended it to a three-goal lead when they promptly fell apart and allowed the San …
Flight Plan week of 10.31.2010
Flight Plan is a new column that will take a more in depth look at the Flyers’ upcoming opponents every week here at Flyers Faithful. The Philadelphia Flyers seemed to have wanted to start celebrating Halloween early this past week and got off to a rough start by dropping a 2-1 decision to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Flyers showed up in their hockey player costumes unfortunately they were also dressed as mindless, decaying, flesh hungry corpses while the Blue Jackets were dressed up as Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson playing Columbus and Tallahasse, their respective characters from Zombieland. In …