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 …

Alive at 45?

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 …

Then and Now: Dennis Seidenberg

At the time, Bob Clarke’s decision to send 24-year-old defenseman Dennis Seidenberg to Phoenix for the aging Petr Nedved was a questionable move. All the Flyers have left from their trade with the Coyotes on January 20, 2006 is minor leaguer Joonas Lehtivuori. Seidenberg, at the moment, is helping the Bruins try to win their first Stanley Cup since 1970. So just how did the aftermath of this deal transpire? “Nedved has always been a good scorer and a real good player and we think he’ll solve some of our problems up front,” Clarke told the Associated Press after the trade back in …

Bring Back Gagne? A look at the pros and cons.

We have 25 days until free agency and I’m sure each and every one of those days will be rumor laden until July 1 arrives. Paul Holmgren was fairly active last season, adding Andrej Meszaros, Sean O’Donnell, Jody Shelley and Nikolay Zherdev, while retaining Darroll Powe and Daniel Carcillo. However all of that activity caused casualties of the cap. Arron Asham signed with Pittsburgh as a free agent and Simon Gagne, the longest- tenured Flyer at the time, waived his no-trade clause in a much maligned deal with Tampa Bay, while we took on Matt Walker — or more precisely, his two hip surgeries.  …

Time to Hang Up the Skates?

The Lulz feature was originally inspired by the lolcats site but features hockey pictures with funny, quirky, ironic or just plain mean captions. This feature should run weekly on Mondays, just to try to make your Monday a little brighter.

Deja Vu all over again

Here’s Simon Gagne’s goal which put the Lightning ahead by one, from yesterday’s 5-3 Tampa Bay win over Boston in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bolts won the game after trailing by a 3-0 count after the first period. Here’s Simon Gagne’s goal from May 14, 2010′s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, a game the Flyers won by a 4-3 score. I swear there’s something familiar… Nah…we didn’t need him this year. We needed another spare defenseman. It was time to let him go and break in some new talent.

Counterpunches, Part II

The second — and regrettably, last – in what was planned to be an occasional series, in which Flyers Faithful scans the papers of the opposition to see how they’re portraying events. We make no assurance of journalistic integrity here. From the venerable Bob Ryan, columnist for the Boston Globe, Saturday morning: “Round 2 is over. With last night’s convincing 5-1 triumph before 17,565 enraptured followers at TD Garden, the Bruins swept the Philadelphia Flyers out of the NHL playoffs. Revenge is theirs. Retribution is theirs. Peace of mind is theirs.” Hold on a minute there, Buster…er…Bob. While no one can dispute …