Who would have thought a week that featured three games against mediocre Southeast Division opponents could provide such entertaining hockey (no sarcasm) and debate? An unusual scene in Tampa Bay, resulting in the equivalent of a puck-possession staring contest, has caused such a stir that the general managers needed to talk about it at their meetings, multiple short-handed penalty-shot goals were awarded AND converted, Braydon Coburn fought a former Philly scrapper in addition to scoring a goal, and the Flyers almost (I know I’m stretching it here) blew a two-goal lead in the final ten seconds of a game. Let’s start with …
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 …
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 …
3 on 3 for the week of 10.23.2011
The Flyers started off the week well, with a win in Ottawa 7-2, but followed it up with two straight losses, a 5-2 setback to the Caps and a 4-2 decision to the Blues — both at home. The Flyers need to play better if they want to turn around this current losing streak. That being said, it is time for this week’s three stars: Matt Read — Read had a career-best goal and three assists in the thrashing of the Sens and has continued his solid all around play at both ends of the ice. He was held scoreless …
Flyers Get First Win In Ottawa Since 2007
Matt Read notched a career-high four points tonight as the Flyers destroyed the Senators 7-2 in Ottawa. Read, Wayne Simmonds, Claude Giroux, and Max Talbot provided goals in the first period to give the Flyers an insurmountable lead. Sergei Bobrovsky had 21 saves on 23 Senators’ shots in his first appearance — and win — of the season. Goals from Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson weren’t nearly enough for Ottawa as Philly produced its biggest win of the short season. His first goal in the league may have been soft, but Read’s second goal was a thing of beauty. Burning past rookie …
Flight Plan for the week of 10.16.2011
I will be filling in for Nick this week, who usually files the weekly Flight Plan. The Flyers played two games this past week, going 1-0-1. They beat the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, by a 5-4 count in the home opener then lost in overtime to the Kings 3-2 on Saturday night. Peter Laviolette’s young club continues to take a lot of untimely penalties and even though they were able weather the storm against Vancouver, a costly tripping call against James van Riemsdyk lead to the Kings’ deciding OT goal. Mike Richards came back to haunt his old mates, recording …
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 …
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 …
Flight Plan 02.27.2011 (Delayed)
There are just 20, count ‘em, 20 games left in the regular season schedule for the Philadelphia Flyers. It looks like they’ve hit somewhat of a slump as they are just 6-3-1 in their last 10, including a Saturday night loss to the Eastern Conference worst Ottawa Senators by a score of 4-1, and struggling to beat the second-worst club, the New York Islanders. None of this spells success, but since the Flyers still hold a pretty good lead over the next best teams in the East (five points and one game in hand over both the Boston Bruins and …