The Flyers used special teams to beat the Rangers 6-3 Wednesday night. First game in awhile the Flyers was able to win like that. They went 3-5 on the power play, but did give up one PP goal to the Rangers on 3 kills.
For the Rangers it was all about Jaromir Jagr, scoring all three Rangers goals getting his 15th career hat trick. Although the Flyers improved since the last meeting with the Rangers with covering Jagr, they still need to work on it. No one was laying the body on Jagr. In years past Chris Therien was very effective at taking the game out of him.
For the Flyers, Mike Knuble scored twice on the PP, Michal Handzus also scored on the PP. Simon Gagne and Jeff Carter scored at even strength. Sami Kapanen added a short handed empty net goal to seal the victory. Jeff Carter has scored 4 goals in the last 5 games. This from a guy who averages less than 12 minutes of ice time a game.
Robert Esche stopped 20 of 23 shots. He played pretty good, except against the Jagr shots which all looked eerily similar.
The big turning point of the game came when Ryan Hollweg boarded R.J. Umberger in the first period. Umberger went hard face first into the boards. Hollweg was ejected and gave the Flyers a 5 minute major Power Play, which they scored twice on. Without that penalty the game could have easily gone the other way. Hollweg was handed a 3 game suspension for the hit. Umberger did return in the second period and besides some stitches and a black eye seemed ok.
Jaromir Jagr, Mike Knuble and Simon Gagne were the three stars.
The win gave the Flyers a tie with the Rangers for first in the division. This lasted for about a day since the Rangers earned a point tonight against the Florida Panthers.
For the season series between the teams, the road team has won every game. Two more games this year between them, one in Philly and one in New York.
Petr Nedved earned his 700th point in the game. Eric Desjardins played his 727th game as a Flyer, moving him into eighth place on the all-time list.
Just noticed the Flyers Players Blog is no longer being updated. Here is the link to the last entry on February 1st. I guess when you are sucking, not a whole lot of good things can be said.
The Flyers have a three game win streak going. After beating the Thrashers, Devils and Rangers I would have to say the Flyers are out of their funk. That is as long as they don’t get embarrassed by the Senators on Saturday night.