The cliche pops up every time a serious injury occurs in any college or professional game — that these unfortunate events serve as stunning reminders that sports is ultimately about the players and not the actual passion in competition. Nonetheless, you could tell the air was sucked out of the Wells Fargo Center and time seemed to stand still with just over eight minutes to play in the first period of a 4-2 Flyers victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night. That’s when Flyers captain Chris Pronger suffered a potentially serious right eye injury when struck full-on by …
Flight Plan Week of 10.23.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers started out of the gate as one of the hottest teams in the National Hockey League, winning four of their first five games and getting points in all five of them. Since then, they have suffered two embarrassing (though in different ways) back-to-back losses on home ice at the hands of the Washington Capitals and the St. Louis Blues. To lose to the Capitals by a score of 5-2 when they’re one of the hotter teams in the NHL at the beginning of the season, and just about every bounce goes the way of the opposition, well …
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 Week of 03.13.2011
Ever hear that saying, “take one step forward and two steps back”? How about “two steps forward and one step back… off a cliff”? That’s what the Philadelphia Flyers did as you would think that last Sunday was rock bottom for the guys in Orange and Black when they took a 7-0 beating at the hands of the New York Rangers, but no. The Flyers were able to take any and all progress they had made in their previous two games against the Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs and not only squander it, but revert back to a …
Flyers Beat Desperate Leafs 3-2
Visiting a desperate Toronto team, the Flyers were able to beat the Maple Leafs 3-2 tonight. Claude Giroux had a goal and an assist helping the Flyers win their second straight game after dropping four straight. The win improves the Flyers’ record to 42-19-6. A flaw of the Flyers game as a whole is the powerplay. Last game against Edmonton, a Jeff Carter tally was the only goal registered on a five minute advantage during the opening period. Tonight, Mike Komisarek received a, what some might call a questionable, five minute major for boarding Daniel Carcillo just before the four minute mark in the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 12.05.2010
The Philadelphia Flyers had just two games this past week. The Flyers were shut out by the Boston Bruins, in the first meeting of both the season and since last year’s historic playoff series, and beat the New Jersey Devils by a score of 5-3. This week the Flyers will continue their busy schedule with their fourth four-game week this season against some very hungry teams in the New York Islanders, the San Jose Sharks, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and a rematch against the Boston Bruins. Since the Flyers had been on a short skid of late that they ended …