The Flyers were trounced by the New York Rangers 6-1 in Philly last night. Freddy Meyer scored the only goal for the Flyers on the Power Play.
The story of the game was basically the Flyers could not kill penalties or score on the power play. The Rangers scored 4 goals on 6 power play chances, while the Flyers scored 1 goal on 9 chances which included a 5 on 3.
The Flyers penalty kill has been bad all season, last in the league. The PK had been blamed on the injuries. Once they got some guys back it was going to improve and it did for awhile. But giving up 4 goals on 6 chances? Ugh.

Let’s look at the first PP goal. On the kill were Rathje, Hatcher, Stevenson and Nedved. No rookies here, all veterans. Hatcher was over at the side boards battling for the puck so for whatever reason the other three decided come over and help. All 4 Flyers were within stick length of the side boards. Martin Straka was able to block Hatcher’s clearing attempt and pass the puck over to Jagr who was all alone and practically 3 feet in front of Esche. Whose idea was it to leave Jagr alone in front of the net? Did someone not get the memo that Jagr is leading the league in goals? And it was all down hill from there.

Antero Niittymaki who was scheduled to start, did not. He has been sick recently, so Robert Esche got the start in goal. Esche lasted into the second period giving up 3 goals on 7 shots. Those goals you really can’t blame on Esche. The first was a total defensive break down, the others were one-timers from Jagr and he had no chance. So Esche is pulled and Niittymaki is put in. Twenty seven seconds later Rangers score again. Within a 1 minute and 58 seconds the game went from 1-0 Rangers to 4-0 Rangers. Everything just fell apart.

Brashear racked up 35 penalties minutes mostly aimed at Darius Kasparaitis.
With just less than 2 minutes left in the game Brashear went after Kasparaitis drawing an instigator minor, a fighting major, 10 minute misconduct and a game misconduct penalty. He is also automatically suspended for one game and Ken Hitchcock is automatically fined $10,000. The fine to Hitchcock is crap. The fine was put in to discourage coaches from sending guys out to start stuff. Is that what Hitchcock did? Brashear played 6 shifts in the first, 5 in the second and 5 in the third. Heck Brashear even saw some power play time, something that usually never happens. So no, Hitch didn’t send him out to start things. I have never liked that rule.

Stars for the game were Jaromir Jagr, Martin Rucinksy and Kevin Weekes.

A lot of talk when Forsberg was out on how much that affected the Flyers. I have to say having Gagne out is a bigger deal. Gagne is the leading scorer on the team, Mike Knuble the next highest is 12 goals behind and has played 9 more games that Gagne.
Both Gagne and Handzus have started skating and should be with the team next week.