The Flyers lose their home opener 5-4 going to a shootout last night in Philly.

Peter Forsberg scores the first goal of the season for the Flyers on the power play. Simon Gagne scored twice with Geoff Sanderson also picked up a power play goal.

The Flyers came out a little flat in the first and gave up a quick goal in the first minute of the game. The first half of the first was all special teams with 8 penalties between the teams. Flyers picked up their play and took a 2 goal lead into intermission. The Flyers took a one goal lead into the third but could not hold on and eventually losing in the shootout.

Joni Pitkanen for the second game picked up the most icetime with 28:56.

There was a little controversy after the game in regards to Forsberg. Forsberg was the 6th shooter for the Flyers and the reason he didn’t shoot in an earlier round.

“I didn’t have any sticks left. They were either broken and all bad, I swear to God. There were a couple other guys who had better shots than me. I used kind of a broken stick.”
“I thought there were better shooters out there, and I have been lacking confidence going in, too. I’ve been struggling scoring.”

Personally I don’t know what the big deal is. He said there were better shooters, it’s not like he was the 12th or 13th shooter. Gagne, Richards, Sanderson, Nedved and Calder shot before him. He didn’t score so it didn’t make much of a difference. The other 12 shooters didn’t score either.

Although giving up the same amount of goals as Esche did in the first game minus the shootout, Antero Niittymaki played a solid game. Several of the goals were deflections or rebounds with poor defensive coverage.

If I had to pick on one D it would have to be Hatcher. He finished a -2, too slow to effectively to cover Nylander on the first Rangers goal, too slow to take the 3 strides out to cover Rozsival on the second Rangers goal and Jagr made him look like a pylon late in the game.
Hossa, Gagne, Nylander were the 3 stars.

Flyers have not given up a power play goal yet in the first two games.

Teams meet again on Tuesday in New York. The game will be on VS (Versus formerly OLN).