Facing elimination at the supposedly hostile Mellon Arean, the Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 Thursday, forcing a Game 6 back in Philly.
Despite the Penguins’ attempts to match the Flyers’ Orange Crush with a White Out of their own, the Pittsburgh fans were flat and uninspired, much like the Penguins themselves.
The Penguins played a solid first period, outshooting the Flyers 15-5, but were unable to get one by Marty Biron, who had brought his A-game. After the first period, however, the Penguins seemed to just be hoping the puck would go in the net and that they would pull out the eliminating victory. After the first period, the Penguins had just 13 total shots on goal, all stopped by Biron.
“We played a strong game and I think we came out good in the first 5 and they were a little bit flat too in the first period,” Flyers’ winger Mike Knuble said.
The Flyers, on the other hand, played with a sense of urgency, understanding that this …
After two pretty anemic games at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, the Flyers came out with a fiery vengeance in their game 3 matchup with the Penguins.
The Flyers struck early with a backhand goal by Jeff Carter, the regular seasonleader in goals and points. Off a pass from Joffrey Lupul, Carter skated towards Pens’ goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and the suddenly broke towards his left, wristing a backhand into the net.
The Flyers, perhaps inspired by a pre-game Stanley Cup video of the Broad Street Bullies, were clearly sick of the way they were manhandled and treated in the first two games and made it clear that they would not be pushed around in their own building. The Flyers hit early, often, and hard.
“You look at Game 1, and I thought we sat back too much and let them dictate the pace,” forward Danny Briere said. “We can’t sit back and let them dictate because guys like [Sydney] Crosby and [Evgeni] Malkin are going to hurt you.”
Just over two minutes …
Today is a busy sports day as all three active sports franchises have a game, two of which are playoff matches.
The reeling Phillies are looking to snap a three-game losing streak and bounce back after a heartbreaking loss to the San Diego Padres on Saturday. Chan Ho Park takes the mound for the Phillies to face off against Josh Greer of the Padres. Park is coming off a rocky start at Colorado in which he allowed five runs in just 3 1/3 innings. Greer is making his first start of the season in the place of the injured Walter Silver. First pitch is at 1:35 PM on WPHL.
The also reeling Flyers are hoping home ice will provide them with some advantage after dropping the first two games of their First Round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They will need to stay out of the penalty box, and will need more consistency from goaltender Marty Biron if they hope to take back the series. The puck drops at 3:00 PM on NBC.
The final game of today’s …
The Flyers have picked up where they left off from last season’s playoffs: they lost game one.
The Flyers lost Game one in all three of their playoff series last year. So hopefully this bodes well for things to come, because the Orange and Black did not look good against the Penguins at Mellon Arena.
The Pens’ two stars, Sydney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin each had a goal and an assist, and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury dominated one of the NHL’s best offenses.
The Flyers couldn’t stay out of the penalty box, or their own zone. Fleury spent a lot of the game doing nothing as the Penguins kept the puck in front of the struggling Marty Biron.
Crosby started things off with a powerplay goal just 4:41 into the first period on assists from Malkin and Sergei Gonchar, who scored half of his points this season on the powerplay.
Tyler Kennedy made it 2-0 just after the start of the second period on a wristshot from Jordan …
Injured Flyers’ defenseman Derian Hatcher has rejoined the team, but not in his normal capacity. The team announced Tuesday that the veteran defenseman, and former team captain, would be joining the Flyers in a player/coach role, and will travel with the team for the duration of the playoffs.
“Paul [Holmgren] just asked me to travel with the team yesterday,” Hatcher said. “Obviously I said yes. They want me to be more of a player role than a coaching role and be around the guys, joke around, help them out when I can or whatever.”
This is not going to be too much out of the ordinary for Hatcher, or the Flyers, as he has been around the team all season, training and trying to stay in shape. He has been on the long-term injury list all season with knee problems.
Even though he’s going to be traveling with the team, there is no chance of a return to playing time.
“Noooo,” Hatcher said. “Does it look like it? Don’t even, …
Even though it looked for the better part of the last week like the Flyers would be facing the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it turns out the Orange and Black will be facing their cross-state rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Many of the pundits agreed that facing the Hurricanes was going to be tough, as they had at one time won nine games in a row, even though many also believed that the Flyers matched up well against them. Unfortunately, the all around oncsensus is that the Penguins will be even tougher.
For much of the past week, the Flyers and Hurricanes were tied in points, battling for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conferrence. Then all of a sudden, Carolina lost two straights games and allowed the Penguins to leapfrog them into fifth place.
Sunday is the final day of the regular season, and it will decide home-ice advantage. The Flyers end their regular season at the Wachovia Center against the New …
With only three games left on the schedule, the Flyers clinched a playoff birth Tuesday night for the 33rd time in their 41 year history with a win over the Florida Panthers at the Wachovia Center. On a night when both the Sixers and Phillies were also playing, the Flyers provided the only highlight of the evening.
“It feels awesome, to be honest with you,” Flyers coach John Stevens said. “I just told our team you’ve got to have a great year now to get into the playoffs. Not just a good year. You have to battle through a lot of adversity, and I thought the way we did it was great.”
The Flyers are currently the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, despite being tied with the Carolina Hurricanes with 97 points. Right on their heels are the Pittsburgh Penguins with 95 points. Both the Hurricanes and Penguins have also clinched playoff births.
Despite being down 1-0 after a Brett McLean wristshot just over four minutes into the second period, the Flyers would battle back and earn …
The saga of Flyers center Danny Briere’s groin continues. The all-star center, who has missed 51 games this season with groin and abdomen injuries made his return to the lineup Sunday in a 3-0 loss to the Devils. Briere’s return was short-lived as he exited Thursday’s game against the Flames (his third game back), with another groin injury.
It was initially unknown how long Briere would be out (this time), but reports this morning are positive. He will be unavailable tonight against against the Predators, but he will likely be back on the ice Tuesday in Buffalo.
“It’s a big relief this morning, no doubt about it,” Briere said. “It wasn’t as bad as we thought [Thursday] night. I had a little workout this morning and I’m hoping to get back on the ice [today] skating.”
Maybe I’m a little skeptical, but haven’t we read this book before?
In late October Briere missed two weeks with abdomen injury. His return lasted a whole two games, before injuring the …
The Flyers traded popular winger Scottie Upshall to the Phoenix Coyotes, along with a second round pick, for hardnosed winger Dan Carcillo.
Carcillo is a hard nosed enforcer, leading the league with 174 penalty minutes. He has three goals and seven assists on the year.
Upshall, one of the fastest players on the Flyers’ roster, has seven goals and 14 assists.
The move frees up some cap space, as Upshall was making $1.2 million, and Carcillo is only making $850,000 this year.
There continues to be speculation that the Flyers are still trying to acquire top-defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, although according to one team source, “Florida was asking for the moon.” According to both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Comcast SportsNet, the Flyers have received permission to negotiate a deal past the 3 PM trade deadline.
Check back for continued updates.
The move also brings into question whether current tough guy, and absolute fan favorite, Riley Cote will remain with the team for much longer.
Injury plagued Flyers’ forward Danny Briere had exploratory abdominal surgery Thursday at Hahnemann University Hospital, where it was discovered that he had a nerve entrapped in a tear that had already begun to heal. Briere is expected to be out a minimum of four weeks.
It was starting to look like the embattled forward would be able to return to the big league club Wednesday against the Atlanta Thrashers, but after three games with the AHL Phantoms, the soreness and pain that has plagued him all season returned.
The decision was made Wednesday to have the surgery to finally determine exactly what the cause of all his troubles has been. The nerve was surgically released, but it will take several weeks before Briere is (again) healthy enough for full time action.
That led Ed Moran, the Flyers beat reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, to ask General Manager Paul Holmgren if he was looking at making a move, and if he had contacted former Flyer Peter Forsberg.
It turns …
Despite not being on the ballot, Jeff Carter has been named as the Flyers’ only representative to this year’s All Star team in Montreal, snubbing captain Mike Richards, forward Simon Gagne, and defenseman Kimo Timonen.
This will be Carter’s first All Star game. He currently is tied for the league lead in goals with 27.
“I didn’t want to talk about it before, but it’s something I wanted to be included in,” said the soft-spoken Carter, who is just two goals shy of equaling his career high. “It’s exciting and a big honor. There are a lot of deserving players that didn’t get picked, too, but to be one of the guys picked, I’m really happy and want to go there and represent the team well.”
Despite being in first place in their division, Carter is the only Flyer going. Richards has 15 goals and 27 assists on the season and has captained his team from the bottom of the standings to first place; Gagne is eighth in the …
Despite having to kill off eight penalties, and getting only one man advantage of their own, the Flyers handled the Minnesotta Wild on Thursday, beating one of the best defensive teams in the league 3-1.
The winning goal was scored on the powerplay by Mike Knuble, his 200th point as a member of the Flyers.
“That’s half my points over my career,” Knuble said. “It went quick. I’ve played with some great players here and that helps. With having so many good players around me there probably should be more points than that.”
The Flyers were not as good on the penalty kill during their two week road trip, but a couple days off has clearly done them some good.
“I know it’s like we’re asking for it all the time,” he said after last night’s victory. “We kind of made it hard on ourselves with the little sticks and stuff like that. We did have solid penalty killing, not so much on the road.
“But here at home we were …
