A fast start was enough for the Flyers to beat the Senators 6-3 last night. The Flyers scored 4 goals on 14 shots in the first 8 minutes of the game. This chased Ray Emery from goal and was replaced by Michael Morrison.
Scoring for the Flyers were Petr Nedved, Niko Dimitrakos, Jeff Carter, Michal Handzus, Peter Forsberg and Donald Brashear, every line scored at least one goal.
Antero Niittymaki played a good game in goal stopping 33 of 36 shots, although he looked a little too nonchalant at times.

After going down by two goals a couple minutes into the game the Senators looked to jumpstart the bench with a fight, Donald Brashear vs Brian McGrattan. Have to give the edge to McGrattan, but the fight really didn’t help with the Flyers scoring two more goals in the next 4 minutes of play. One other fight late in the game with Chris Neil going after Denis Gauthier. Gauither not really a fighter just stood and tried to avoid the hits. I guess he just didn’t want to turtle.

The Senators were without some key players, but so are the Flyers. Scheduling would be the one disadvantage Senators had coming into the game with them playing the night before. The Flyers had several days off. But at any rate it was a good win stretching the win streak to 4 and for now giving the Flyers third in the Eastern Conference.

Anything bad to say about the game? Sure, special teams. The Flyers gave up 2 Power Play goals on 4 kills, plus a short handed goal. Yeah the game was already out of reach, but still ‘special teams win playoffs’. At least that’s what I have been told. But if you can score 4 goals in the first 8 minutes of the game, I don’t think that matters much.

What has helped the Flyers break out of their funk? Besides the hard play it is the other 3 lines contributing. The Forsberg-Knuble-Gagne line has not had to carry the team as of late. A big factor in this is line consistency. For the first time since October the Flyers have gone 5 straight games with the same lineup. Handzus and Nedved have really started to play well together. Although I would rather see Branko Radivojevic on that line instead of Brian Savage and not just so I could call it the Czechoslovakia line. The hottest line of late is the Carter-Umberger-Dimitrakos line. Carter has scored 5 goals in the past 6 games with the others adding in a few. Dimitrakos who some thought would end up heading to the Phantoms has so far added energy and a real offensive threat to that line. The Richards-Brashear-Kapanen line has also played well as of late.

Jeff Carter, Donald Brashear and Niko Dimitrakos were the three stars.

Branko Radivojevic and Turner Stevenson were healthy scratches for the Flyers.

The Ottawa Senators the first team this year to clinch a playoff spot come to Philly tonight to play the Flyers. The Flyers lead the season series 2-1 against the Senators. The Senators won the last meeting 3-2 in Ottawa on February 11. This is the last regular season meeting between the two teams.
Ottawa is coming off a 3-1 win against the Sabres on Friday. The Flyers are coming off a 6-3 win over the Rangers on Wednesday.

Antero Niittymaki is expected to get the start in goal. Senators also have a rookie goaltender starting with Ray Emery.

Injuries for the Flyers include Keith Primeau, Kim Johnsson and Chris Thereien.
R.J. Umberger will be fine to play tonight against the Senators, although he will be wearing a half shield visor and will have his eye taped to stay open. Yeah, his eye will be taped to stay open, guess he isn’t looking too pretty right now.
Injuries for the Senators include Dominik Hasek, Zdeno Chara, Martin Havlat, Mike Fisher and Anton Volchenkov.
Wow this might be the first game in quite some time this year that the Flyers have less injured players then an opponent.

A win tonight for the Flyers and a loss by the Rangers would put the Flyers back in first in the division, third in the conference.
The Flyers need one win to reach 40 for the season which would be the 6th season in a row reaching 40 wins. Mike Knuble needs one goal to reach 31 for the season a new career high.

The Flyers used special teams to beat the Rangers 6-3 Wednesday night. First game in awhile the Flyers was able to win like that. They went 3-5 on the power play, but did give up one PP goal to the Rangers on 3 kills.
For the Rangers it was all about Jaromir Jagr, scoring all three Rangers goals getting his 15th career hat trick. Although the Flyers improved since the last meeting with the Rangers with covering Jagr, they still need to work on it. No one was laying the body on Jagr. In years past Chris Therien was very effective at taking the game out of him.

For the Flyers, Mike Knuble scored twice on the PP, Michal Handzus also scored on the PP. Simon Gagne and Jeff Carter scored at even strength. Sami Kapanen added a short handed empty net goal to seal the victory. Jeff Carter has scored 4 goals in the last 5 games. This from a guy who averages less than 12 minutes of ice time a game.

Robert Esche stopped 20 of 23 shots. He played pretty good, except against the Jagr shots which all looked eerily similar.
The big turning point of the game came when Ryan Hollweg boarded R.J. Umberger in the first period. Umberger went hard face first into the boards. Hollweg was ejected and gave the Flyers a 5 minute major Power Play, which they scored twice on. Without that penalty the game could have easily gone the other way. Hollweg was handed a 3 game suspension for the hit. Umberger did return in the second period and besides some stitches and a black eye seemed ok.

Jaromir Jagr, Mike Knuble and Simon Gagne were the three stars.

The win gave the Flyers a tie with the Rangers for first in the division. This lasted for about a day since the Rangers earned a point tonight against the Florida Panthers.
For the season series between the teams, the road team has won every game. Two more games this year between them, one in Philly and one in New York.

Petr Nedved earned his 700th point in the game. Eric Desjardins played his 727th game as a Flyer, moving him into eighth place on the all-time list.

Just noticed the Flyers Players Blog is no longer being updated. Here is the link to the last entry on February 1st. I guess when you are sucking, not a whole lot of good things can be said.

The Flyers have a three game win streak going. After beating the Thrashers, Devils and Rangers I would have to say the Flyers are out of their funk. That is as long as they don’t get embarrassed by the Senators on Saturday night.

Over all it was a pretty good game. There seemed to be a little bit more flow then a typical Flyers-Devils game, but it was low scoring as usual.

Simon Gagne and Peter Forsberg (Power Play) scored for the Flyers.

Niittymaki played a solid game stopping 21 of 22 shots.
The Umberger-Carter-Dimitrakos line started the game and the second period. I guess rewarding that line for its solid play the last few games. Although they didn’t score, they still played well. Lines recently have settled down in regards to changes. Other lines have been Forsberg-Gagne-Knuble, Richards-Kapanen-Brashear and Nedved-Handzus-Savage.

Branko Radivojevic who usually plays on the Nedved line instead of Savage was scratched. Other scratches were Randy Jones, Turner Stevenson.

Peter Forsberg, Antero Niittymaki and Brian Gionta were the three stars.

We all like milestones, well maybe not, but they tend to be nice round numbers. Here is a couple. Simon Gagne scored his 40th goal of the season. Jon LeClair in 2000 was the last Flyer to accomplish this. Antero Niittymaki played in his 40th NHL game.
Ken Hitchcock has won 400 games in the NHL as a coach.

No rest today, tonight the Flyers play the Rangers in New York.
No word on the starting goalie, but I would expect Esche since Niittymaki played the night before.
If the Flyers win, they will again tie the Rangers for first in the Atlantic Division.

The Flyers are back home tonight against the New Jersey Devils. Another game against another playoff bound team, another game to figure out if they have broken out of their slump or not.
Season series tied at 2 games a piece. Devils won the last meeting March 1 a 2-1 shootout in Jersey.
The Devils are coming off a 4-0 loss to the Senators on Sunday. The Flyers are coming off a 4-2 win over the Thrashers on Saturday.

Peter Forsberg will be back in the lineup after missing a game with a sore knee.
Also back will be Sami Kapanen from a sore shoulder and Michal Handzus playing thru his shoulder injury.

Even with getting three players back injuries for the Flyers include Kim Johnsson and Chris Therien out with head injuries and of course Keith Primeau is out for the season.
Injuries for the Devils include Darren Langdon and Richard Matvichuck

Antero Niittymaki will get his second straight start in goal.

Flyers are now 4 points behind the Rangers for 1st place in the Eastern Conference. Both teams have 14 games remaining. Of those games, 3 are between the two teams. Flyers play the Devils 4 more times, including tonight. Other games for the Flyers are 1 against the Senators, Sabers and Penguins, two against Toronto and the Islanders.

With all the division games, especially against the Devils and Rangers for the Flyers to have home ice advantage going into the playoffs they need to really do well.

The goalie matchup was Lehtonen vs Niittymaki, Fin vs Fin, chosen for the Olympics vs the one initially left out, goalie rematch of the 2005 Calder Cup.

Niitty stopped 2 more shots than Lehtonen giving the Flyers a 4-2 win. He is undefeated against Lehtonen going back to the Calder Cup, 5-0.
He played pretty good in net. The win is his 20th of the year.

First goal of the game came on the Power Play by Mike Knuble. Jeff Carter, R.J. Umberger and Niko Dimitrakos all scored at even strength. Carter’s goal is his third in 3 games. Joni Pitkanen picked up 3 assists, Eric Desjardins 2. Desjardins now has 300 assists as a Flyer.

Flyers took 9 penalties to the Thrashers 4 and were able to kill off 8 of them. Peter Forsberg has been accused of being a diver, and that might be. After watching Bob Hartley’s Thrashers I can see who he learned from. Diving must be part of the Bob Hartlely coaching system. Seeing one or two questionable falls during a game isn’t uncommon, but the dives in last night’s game were just crazy. When the stick and gloves start flying, one has to wonder.

So another win for the Flyers, but they are still in second in the division. Overall the Flyers played well against a team fighting for a playoff spot.
The next game is against the New Jersey Devils a team in the playoff picture and potential first round opponent.

Peter Forsberg did not play because of a sprained knee. He should be ready to go on Tuesday. With Forsberg out Mike Richards was moved up to center the top line. Although not scoring any goals, that line did have a decent amount of energy in the game.

So the vacation is over. No more fun in the sun. No more playing a team like the Panthers. The Flyers lost to the Lightning 6-3. And like many games recently the Flyers lost on the Penalty Kill. Four of the 6 Lightning goals were on the Power Play.

Peter Forsberg scored a rare short handed goal for himself. Jeff Carter picked up a power play goal. Niko Dimitrakos picked up his first goal as a Flyer off a bad clearing attempt by John Grahame.

Even with giving up 5 goals Robert Esche still had a decent game. Deflections hurt him early but it did seem he didn’t look comfortable moving laterally.

That game was the worse officiated game I have seen in quite some time. Officiating is not the blame for the lost. Officiating was just bad. It was hard to tell whether the calls themselves were just bad or if some very soft calls were intentional to make up for previous bad calls.
Derian Hatcher gets a 5 minute boarding call which isn’t and leads to a 10 minute game misconduct. Pavel Kubina jumps him, hits him in the face with his stick and only gets 2 minutes roughing?
Denis Gauthier hits Vincent Lacavalier as he is scoring. Lecavalier retaliates and gets an Instigator, Game misconduct, Misconduct and Fighting major and Gauthier gets nothing? Did no one see Gauthier throwing punches?
The NHL will review the incident and decide if Lecavalier will get the not automatic, automatic suspension. But he won’t, since he isn’t a fighter. It is a bullshit rule anyway.

Michal Handzus returned to the lineup after missing 8 games with a shoulder injury. His return gave the Flyers a Czech-Slovack line Nedved-Handzus-Radivojevic.

The Flyers have a serious problem with Tampa Bay. The Lightning has swept the regular season series between the two teams 2 years in a row now. The last time a team has done that to the Flyers was Boston in 1970 and 71.

Sami Kapanen sat out the game with a sore shoulder. He fell on it during practice. The same shoulder Kapanen had surgery on earlier in the year. He is expected to play tonight in Atlanta, but is listed day to day.

Turner Stevenson was scratches for the fourth game in a row. He is continuing to have soreness in his hip.

Kim Johnsson has missed 17 games with post-concussion symptoms and Chris Therien has missed 14 games with a head injury. Both have being seeing improvements, but still not healthy enough to practice. On Wednesday they will travel to Pittsburgh to see a neurologist to be reevaluated.

When the Flyers play the Thrashers tonight, 11 of them will skate the warmup with pink sticks. The sticks will be dipped in pink paint, used in the warmups and signed by the player. The sticks then will be auctioned off on Ebay with the money raised going to breast cancer research.
Players participating include Mike Knuble, Simon Gagne, Mike Richards, Mike Rathje, Turner Stevenson, Joni Pitkanen, Donald Brashear, Freddy Meyer, Robert Esche and Antero Niittymaki.