The Philadelphia Flyers beat the New York Islanders 4-1 in the last game of the season. With the New Jersey Devils win and the New York Rangers loss the Flyers finished in 5th place in the Eastern Conference which means they play the Buffalo Sabres in the first round of the playoffs.

This had to be the most painful win to watch the entire year. The officiating was about as horrid as I have seen this year. The broadcast quality of Fox Sports Net New York wasn’t any better. NHL Center Ice showed the New York feed.

First off this guy below is NOT Jeff Carter. That is Mike Richards.

This is Jeff Carter.

Besides this little production error what made the game painful to watch was the lack of play by play and the ramblings FSN commentators Howie Rose and Joe Micheletti. Do these guys know how to call a game right or they just not care since it was the last game of the season? With the teams playing each other 8 times I got to hear again for the 8th time about how Freddy Meyer is actually Fredrick Meyer IV and oh that’s like royalty. Also all about the Forsberg/Lindros trade again for the 8th time. It doesn’t matter that a game is going on, let’s just talk and it doesn’¢t have to pertain to the game we are calling. “Hey, did you hear about the latest GM firing… You know the first two Swedes that played in the NHL…” This wouldn’t have been bad except that’s all they talked about during the first half of the game. Yeah let’s not call the game, let’s just talk about hockey news. I was tempted to just mute the audio but I figured at some point they would run out of crap to talk about and call the freakin game. But they didn’t, they spent the second half of the game thanking themselves and everyone I guess that works at FSN NY. The entire second half of the game this was done, pretty much no play by play at all. The only time they actually called the game was if the Islanders had a scoring opportunity or after the Flyers scored. This was very apparent when Rose was in mid-sentence talking about someone on their crew when Umberger scored. He actually had to stop and talk about the game, imagine that! Some advice for Rose and Micheletti and actually P.J. Stock too, listen to and take notes from Doc Emerick and Gary Thorne. There is a reason these guys do the national and international games.

The Flyers play thru the first 2 periods didn’t help this pain either. Just 7 shots in the first period, only 5 shots in the second while being down by a goal. To me they were just scoreboard watching. If the Devils and Rangers would have been winning their games the Flyers probably would have packed it in going into the third. But they saw they still had a chance at the division championship and pushed just enough to get the win in the 3rd period. R.J. Umberger and Jeff Carter scored to tie and take the lead for the Flyers. Simon Gagne and Michal Handzus both scored shorthanded empty netters to finish it off.

Umbergers goal was his 20th of the year. This is the first time in Flyer history that two rookies, Umberger and Carter, have scored at least 20 goals in a year.
Ken Hitchcock has coached 8 straight seasons earning at least 100 points.

Ben Eager got the start replacing Sami Kapanen who missed the game with an upper body injury. Robert Esche played a strong game in goal.

Jeff Carter, R.J. Umberger and Garth Snow where the three stars.

Right after the game with the Devils 3 goals down in their last game the Flyers figured they won it, the Altantic Division. They won home ice and a chance to play a red hot Devils team that has won 10 straight, but it didn’t work out like that. The Devils came back from a 3 goal deficit to beat Montreal thus giving them the Atlantic Division championship. So instead of the Devils, the Flyers start on the road against the Sabres. I have to say I am a bit relieved. I would rather the Flyers play the Sabres than the Devils considering how hot the Devils are currently.