What a freaking game. For the fist time this year the Philadelphia Flyers won without Peter Forsberg. They beat the Rangers in New York 5-3. Scottie Upshall acquired in the Forsberg deal scored his fist goal as a Flyer, the game winner. Sanderson, Gagne, Umberger and Afanasenkov each added a goal. It was a total team effort.

The Flyers took 8 penalties in the first as they seem to spend most of the period on the power play. It was comical to listen to the Rangers announcers and analysts repeatedly say how the ‘Flyers were playing stupid’ in the first period, over and over. But yet the Flyers had a 2-1 lead.

2 fights in the game with Richards going with Avery and Picard going with Ward. Who doesn’t like this type of hockey?

Dmitry Afanasenkov was awarded a penalty shot after being tripped up from behind, but missed. He did score a little later.

There was one scary moment in the third as Mike Knuble and Brendan Shanahan accidentally ran into each other. While Knuble was able to get up after a few minutes, Shanahan was boarded and taken to the hospital. After being examine it seemed nothing too serious for either of them.

Niittymaki got the start in goal and stopped 40 of 43 shots. Henrik Lundqvist got the start in goal for the Rangers but was replaced in the third period after being injured by a shot up high. Lundqvist and Shanahan werent the only Rangers that were injured. Jaromir Jagr, Marek Malik and Aaron Ward also suffered injuries.

Geoff Sanderson centered the line of Knuble and Gagne and it looked pretty good. I have read rumors of the Flyers looking to trade Sanderson. I would like to see him stay, York who was a healthy scratch again I could see go.

Gagne, Sanderson and Niittymaki were the three stars for the game.