John Stevens reacts to the 5-4 overtime loss in San Jose on October 18, 2008.

Mike Richards reacts to the Flyers’ 5-4 overtime loss in San Jose on October 18, 2008.

Briere scored 2 of the Flyers goals, Coburn and Carter each scored a goal.
Overall I think the Flyers played a pretty decent game. Although Niitty gave up 5 goals I think he played a pretty good game. But obviously the effort was not enough.

While the Flyers not putting forth a full effort is frustrating what has bugged me the last few games is the officiating. Its been bloody awful. The biggest problem is lack of consistency. The game in Colorado and the game in San Jose were officiated at opposite ends of the spectrum. The game in Colorado had 40 minutes of penalties called and not one of them a major or double minor. That’s 2 full periods. Many of them were at least questionable if not just out right wrong. The Sharks game if you take out the offsetting roughing and fisticuffs penalties there were 18 minutes of penalties, less then half of the previous game. Its not just the quantity of calls, but what is a penalty one night isnt a penalty the next. The NHL has to do some thing about this.

Back in the 2006 season then Flyers head coach Ken Hitchcock was fired when the team had only won 1 game thru the first 8 games. This season the Flyers haven’t won a game in the first 5 games. Does this mean Steven’s job is on the line? Possibly, but probably not. Hitchcock who was brought in with Keith Primeau’s approval had lost the locker room. With Primeau gone, no one on the team liked Hitchcock and players did make this known thru the media. Hitchcock was the easy scapegoat. This time around the situation is different. The players like Stevens, the team hasn’t gone AWOL. So we will see.