In an 82 game season, most games mean absolutely nothing, but tonight's Caps/Flyers game stood out just a bit more than your ordinary regular season game. Whenever the two teams get together, the Caps still try to exact some revenge for last year's first round playoff loss to the Orange and Black. Plus, the Caps, along with Pittsburgh, are the media's darlings, so the Flyers always seem to have a little extra incentive to knock them off. Finally, Mike Richards and Alex Ovechkin just don't like each other so these games always have a little extra intensity and lead to some pretty decent hockey games. Thankfully for the Orange and Black, these games (the important ones at least) always seem to end up in our favor.
Tonight's game got off to a slow start with the Flyers trailing by 2 until potentially season changing rookie Claude Giroux cut the lead in half heading into the final period. In the third period, the Flyers showed more jump than Nancy Pelosi at last night's State of the Union address. (Is this thing on?) (Seriously, was anyone else completely distracted by Nancy Pelosi jumping out of her seat to applaud the second Obama completed each and every phrase of his speech?) The Flyers scored three times in 3:19 to take complete control of the game and remind the Caps who's the hammer and who's the nail in this relationship.
Overall, you have to like how this team is starting to shape up. There is more forward depth than any Flyers team in my life. The defense is competent. It's not great, but definitely serviceable. As we are all painfully aware, this season is coming down to goaltending, like it has every season since Ron Hextall's rookie year. I'm still not sure exactly what to expect from Biron and Nitty, but you have to hope one of them gets hot.
Almost forgot, it would really help to totally avoid the Devils in the playoffs. We simply don't beat that team, but we can deal that topic another day.
1 comment:
I gotta agree with ya about the Flyers, Phan. They smell to me like the kind of team that can really make a mark with the balance of lines and skilled hard-workers (we've seen that one or the other of skill or hard work are destined for short-playoff runs). I also agree that it'll likely come down to who's between the pipes (and by "who" I mean which Biron or which Nitty).
Sure was fun watching them take the game over vs. Washington, though...
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