The Flyers snapped a 4 game losing streak by beating the Penguins 2-1 in Pittsburgh yesterday. R.J. Umberger and Jeff Carter scored for the Flyers both power play goals. Recently acquired Petr Nedved picked up his first point as a Flyer.
Pittsburgh’s lone goal came in the third on a deflection from Colby Armstrong. Robert Esche definitely played well in his first start in over a month.
Joni Pitkanen left the game in the second period with tightness in his groin.
Brian Savage was a healthy scratch.

Umberger, Esche and Fleury were the three stars.

Both goalies wore cameras in their masks, made for some interesting shots. I think it also showed how nutty someone has to be to play goal.

Two fights in the game, Turner Stevenson took on Eric Cairns, Stevenson looked pretty bad in it. Small guy Freddy Meyer took on Maxime Talbot. For a small guy and not being a fighter, Meyer did ok. Flyers heavyweight Donald Brashear didn’t see any action.

Both teams had 5 on 3’s to contend with. The Flyers were able to capitalize on theirs, which was the difference in the game.

The Flyers head to Pittsburgh to play the Penguins this afternoon.
Another weekend, another Flyers game on national TV, another game to listen about the awesomeness of Sid. Awesomeness is that actually a word? Another game for Hatcher and Sid to get to know each other.

This is the 5th meeting between the two teams this season. The Flyers have won 3 of 4. The Flyers last loss in Pittsburgh in November of 2002.

Injuries for the Flyers include Eric Desjardins, Peter Forsberg, Kim Johnsson and Keith Primeau.
Injuries for the Penguins include Jocelyn Thibault, Ryan VandenBussche and Brooks Orpik.

Robert Esche will be getting his first start in goal since mid December after recovering from a groin injury. Will there be rust? Will the 15 pound weight loss make him quicker? We will have to see. Not expecting him to re-injure himself like he did earlier in the year. He wasn’t coming back until ‘he was 110%’. Antero Niittymaki will serve as backup. Jamie Storr who served backup to Niittymaki was sent back to the Phantoms. Storr didn’t see any action during the 17 games of Esche’s injury.

Joni Pitkanen will also be back in the lineup after being out since early December with a sports hernia.

Petr Nedved will make his first start as a Flyer after being traded from Phoenix for Dennis Seidengerg.

Simon Gagne needs one goal to reach 33 for the season which would tie his career high in the NHL set during the 01-02 season.
Potential lines for today are Nedved-Kapanen-Radivojevic, Handzus-Gagne-Knuble.

The Flyers lost bad to the Boston Bruins 5-2 in Philadelphia on Thursday.
Yeah, there wasn’t enough adult beverage in the frig to watch this game.
Sami Kapanen and Simon Gagne(power play) scored the only goals for the Flyers.

Bergeron, Green and Kapanen were the three stars. Michal Handzus was the lone plus Flyer at +1.
With Forsberg injured Jon Sim got some play time, he has recently been a healthy scratch. Seidenburg was a healthy scratch and was traded earlier today to Phoenix for Petr Nedved.

Nitty did let in some soft goals, but the entire team was bad. More mistakes by rookie defensemen, sloppy play, no energy. To me it looked like they really didn’t care. Sure they played harder after going down two goals, but they could never get the momentum.
Nitty gave up 3 goals on 7 shots in the second. I would expect the coach to change goalies, but Hitchcock decided not to. It really wouldn’t have hurt at that point. It’s not like Jamie Storr the backup doesn’t have any NHL experience. The goalie change might have woken up the Flyers.

Antero Niittymaki made his 17th straight start in net, the most for any goalie this year. The most for the Flyers since Tommy Soderstrom started 18 in a row in the 92-93 season.

The Flyers are on their longest losing streak of the year at 4 games. The games against Detroit and Colorado were considered benchmark games. The Flyers lost. They also lost to Carolina who is the hottest team in the east right now. Starting with the Boston game, the Flyers play 5 games against teams that are currently out of the playoff race, Penguins, Lighting and Montreal.
The Flyers need to win these games. If they can’t beat these teams what sort of chance do they have against playoff bound teams? I hear it all the time from other fans. “These games don’t matter”. “They don’t need to really try until the playoffs”.
Ugh, these games absolutely matter. If the Flyers had 6 more points last season they would have had home ice going into the division finals. But they didn’t and went 2-1 at home and 1-3 in Tampa against the Lighting with game seven score being 2-1. Home ice advantage can be huge in the playoffs.

The Philadelphia Flyers hope to break their 3 game winless streak tonight as they take on the Boston Bruins.
The Flyers lead the series 3-0 against the Bruins this season. The last meeting was on January 2, the Flyers won 1-0 in Boston.
The Flyers are coming off a 4-3 Shootout loss to Carolina on Tuesday. The Bruins are coming off a 4-3 OT win against Anaheim on Monday.

Injures for the Flyers include Peter Forsberg, Keith Primeau, Eric Desjardins, Robert Esche and Joni Pitkanen.
Injuries for the Bruins include Glen Murray, Brian Leetch, Hannu Toivonen, Andrew Raycroft, Alexei Zhamonov and Ian Moran.

With Forsberg’¢s injury the lines get changed up a bit. Handzus-Gagne-Kapanen is one, Richards-Sim-Knuble is another.

With tonights game Chris Therien will move into sole 4th place for all time games played by a Flyer with 747. He is first overall for defenseman. Bob Clarke is at 1,144, Bill Barber at 903 and Brian Propp at 790.

John Slaney, Captain of the Philadelphia Phantoms has been selected to play in the AHL All-Star game this year, starting defenseman. This is his 5th All-Star game, 4th as a starter.

The Flyers lose in the shootout 4-3 to the Hurricanes in Philly.
There was an accident on i-95 just north of the Wachovia center earlier in the day closing down the Interstate. It was still closed at game time. This had no affect on the players, but the seats looked a little empty at the start of the game. Mike Knuble had a goal called off 23 seconds into the game, after review it determined he hit the puck with a high stick which was the right call.
There was a lot of energy in the first period. The Flyers played as well as they could without scoring. They allowed no shots on the two penalty kills of that period and out shot the Hurricanes 8-2 overall.
Second period continued the fast pace and hard hits. Jeff Carter scores on a partial breakaway with a nifty top shelf backhand shot for his 11th of the season at 12:37. The Hurricanes were able to get some pressure on Antero Niittymaki getting 11 shots on goal, the Flyers had 12.
Third period started with the Hurricanes coming out strong. The Flyers were able to survive the initial onslaught and picked up a goal from defenseman Kim Johnsson who snuck in from the point at 3:19 to score. The two goal lead didn’t last long as Matt Cullen of the Hurricanes scored on a high wrist shot at 3:40. Niittymaki may have been screen on the play. Freddy Meyer scored on a wrist shot from the point at 13:45. The two goal lead lasted about 2 minutes as Oleg Tverdovsky scored on a slap shot from the slot. Eric Cole of the Hurricanes tied the game 3-3 with a breakaway goal with 3:58 remaining.
OT Lots of end to end action, but no goals scored.

“We played very hard today and we played very well, but what we didn’t do was protect the puck when the game was on the line and that is disappointing.” – Coach Ken Hitchcock.
Flyers lost the third period, which cost them the game.

Shootout- I really hate the shootout. I never liked the idea of the shootout. Personally I think they should just keep playing. The Flyers being 2-4 in the shootout hasn’t helped my opinion of it. And of course, they loss this one.

For the Hurricanes Ray Whitney, Matt Cullen and Rod Brind’Amour scored.
For the Flyers Mike Richards and Michal Handzus scored. Gagne and Carter missed their shots.

Forsberg suffered a minor left groin strain late in the second period and did not play the third period. He will miss at least one game with his injury. He missed two weeks with a right groin injury earlier in the year.

Gerber had 2 big breakaways saves on Gagne, along with the stop on him in the shootout. Gerber deserved a star.
It is becoming painfully obvious that Niittymaki’s big weakness is the breakaway and shootout. Not a bad game from him, but not really a great one either.

Three stars for the game were Rod Brind’Amour, Freddy Meyer and Matt Cullen

It amazes me how many commentators from around the league have some sort of connection to the Philadelphia Flyers. Tripp Tracy color commentator for the Hurricanes is no exception. Tracy was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers back in 1993, but never made it to the NHL as a player.

Chris Therien played in his 746 game as a Flyer tying him for fourth all time with Joe Watson.

The Flyers play the Hurricanes tonight in Philadelphia. The season series is tied 1-1 with both games being played in Carolina.
The Flyers are coming off a 4-3OT loss to the Avalanche on Saturday. The Hurricanes are coming off a 4-2 win over the Blues on Sunday.

Injuries for the Flyers include Eric Desjardins, Robert Esche, Joni Pitkanen and Keith Primeau.
Injuries for the Hurricanes include Mike Commodore, Aaron Ward, Glen Wesley Andrew Ladd and Josef Vasicek.

The Flyers have slowly made their way out of the basement in regards to the Penalty Kill, they are now up to 25th.
The Hurricanes have not won in Philadelphia since October, 1999.

Chris Therien needs one game to reach 746 as a Flyer which would tie him with Joe Watson for fourth place on the Flyers All-Time List. With Pitkanen returning this week and the good play of Phantom call-ups Meyer and Jones there are 2 too many defensemen. Rumors are that Therien will either be bought out or waived.

Mike Knuble has made another update to the Player Blog. He talks about the win in Chicago, the loss in Detriot, having Sunday off and how much the Flyers appreciate being back home with the fans.

Sami Kapanen is leaning toward to not playing in the Olympics. With a sore knee and shoulder surgery earlier in the year, he might just take the two weeks to rest.

John Buccigross of ESPN plays General Manager stating what he would do if he was only GM. Actually this is part two of one.
Here is what he had to say about the Flyers.

Speaking of the Flyers, they are with Ottawa as the clear-cut best in the NHL. When healthy, it’s the Senators, Flyers, and then everyone else. No one can match the offensive flair and team defense of the Senators and Flyers. If the Flyers can get everyone back from the injured list for the start of the playoffs, they will enter the tournament with one of their best chances to end their 30-year Stanley Cup drought. Hey Philadelphia fans, out of your four pro sports teams, this is your most talented and most fun to watch. They have that perfect mix of veterans and prime and young players. The question is would Bobby Clarke overpay for a goalie like Jose Theodore or Roberto Luongo? I think it is still possible, but it will cost the Flyers at least Mike Richards or Jeff Carter, plus a defenseman and another prospect. It would be costly, but plunking a Roberto Luongo behind a Ken Hitchcock-coached defensive team would be frightening for the rest of the NHL.

Verdict: Everything up front is pretty set. Maybe an upgrade at left wing. Will Donald Brashear be relevant in the playoffs? He has one goal in 38 games and plays about nine minutes a night. Ask Hitchcock if he can win the Stanley Cup with his current crop of goalies. If he says yes, rename Broad Street Niittymaki Boulevard and get on with it. Because Richards and Carter are cap friendly for a few years, it doesn’t make much sense to trade them. They are cheap and will take a big leap in production next year. If I owned the Flyers, I would give them both no-trade clauses because I enjoy watching them play too much and wouldn’t want an emotional GM to trade either.

Would I overpay for a goalie like Theordore or Luongo? Nope, have to go with Frank and Chico.
Will Donald Brashear be relevant in the playoffs? I think he can, but it won’t be on the scoreboard. In the new NHL with the salary cap the Flyers are not getting their moneys worth out of him. I figure this will be his last season with the Flyers unless he is willing to take a big pay cut. If Primeau does come back I suspect Brashear will play on his line to help protect him. Next year I think Brashear will be gone and Eager will be the Flyers new tough guy.

Buccigross while talking about the Penguins thinks Recchi could end up back in Philly. But then according to Buccigross half the teams he talks about could use Recchi. The interesting part of the Recchi to Philly rumor is that Seidenberg wanted to wear Recchi’s number 8, but was told he could not. Buccigross also goes on and says that he could also see LeClair coming back to Philly replacing Brashear. I agree he would score more that Brashear, but energizing the fans? I don’t think so. Flyers fans want to see hard work and harder hits. Has LeClair’s physical game increased that much with the year off?
John LeClair currently has 7 goals, 13 assists and is -16 which is tied for second worse on the Penguins. From a cap standpoint along with energy and hunger I would rather go with Ben Eager. LeClair doesn’t need to make anymore money off the Flyers, he is older and slower and just not worth it.
As far as Recchi, let’s look at his numbers. 12 goals, second on the team, 23 assists third on the team, -24 last on the team. -24? Does he play any defense at all? With averaging over 20 minutes of ice time per game would he have any gas left in the tank if the Flyers would pick him up? He has more ice time then Sid does, what’s the deal with that?