A fast start was enough for the Flyers to beat the Senators 6-3 last night. The Flyers scored 4 goals on 14 shots in the first 8 minutes of the game. This chased Ray Emery from goal and was replaced by Michael Morrison.
Scoring for the Flyers were Petr Nedved, Niko Dimitrakos, Jeff Carter, Michal Handzus, Peter Forsberg and Donald Brashear, every line scored at least one goal.
Antero Niittymaki played a good game in goal stopping 33 of 36 shots, although he looked a little too nonchalant at times.

After going down by two goals a couple minutes into the game the Senators looked to jumpstart the bench with a fight, Donald Brashear vs Brian McGrattan. Have to give the edge to McGrattan, but the fight really didn’t help with the Flyers scoring two more goals in the next 4 minutes of play. One other fight late in the game with Chris Neil going after Denis Gauthier. Gauither not really a fighter just stood and tried to avoid the hits. I guess he just didn’t want to turtle.

The Senators were without some key players, but so are the Flyers. Scheduling would be the one disadvantage Senators had coming into the game with them playing the night before. The Flyers had several days off. But at any rate it was a good win stretching the win streak to 4 and for now giving the Flyers third in the Eastern Conference.

Anything bad to say about the game? Sure, special teams. The Flyers gave up 2 Power Play goals on 4 kills, plus a short handed goal. Yeah the game was already out of reach, but still ‘special teams win playoffs’. At least that’s what I have been told. But if you can score 4 goals in the first 8 minutes of the game, I don’t think that matters much.

What has helped the Flyers break out of their funk? Besides the hard play it is the other 3 lines contributing. The Forsberg-Knuble-Gagne line has not had to carry the team as of late. A big factor in this is line consistency. For the first time since October the Flyers have gone 5 straight games with the same lineup. Handzus and Nedved have really started to play well together. Although I would rather see Branko Radivojevic on that line instead of Brian Savage and not just so I could call it the Czechoslovakia line. The hottest line of late is the Carter-Umberger-Dimitrakos line. Carter has scored 5 goals in the past 6 games with the others adding in a few. Dimitrakos who some thought would end up heading to the Phantoms has so far added energy and a real offensive threat to that line. The Richards-Brashear-Kapanen line has also played well as of late.

Jeff Carter, Donald Brashear and Niko Dimitrakos were the three stars.

Branko Radivojevic and Turner Stevenson were healthy scratches for the Flyers.