The Flyers did not play as well as they could have, but some credit for that goes to the Sharks, who played outstanding team defense and kept us to the perimeter. There are going to be nights like this where the other team forces us to play their game because the other team is as good as, or better than, we are. In short, I don’t think the Flyers lacked for effort, but they could not execute because the Sharks would not let them. It also helped the Sharks’ cause that they are an excellent faceoff team and we are not. If you spend most of the game chasing the puck, you’re not going to win very often.

The three things which frustrated me the most tonight were the lousy officiating, the Flyers’ poor job on faceoffs, and what I am assuming is another injury for Simon Gagne. He played 11:44 tonight while his normal center (Richards) played about 10 minutes more. Something had to happen. He’s not the kind of guy that a coach would bench for dogging it (a la Lupul).

Kimmo and Braydon need to be separated, put Parent with kimmo for 2nd line when he gets back. What the hell is up with Coburn this year, has he been training with Stevie Wonder on puck control. He loses the puck every time he touches it. Even his defense looks piss poor, ALWAYS out of possession.

Just a thought, how long does Stevens have with this team??? every problem we had last year is still killing us, lack of D, no effort from our top two lines, bad 3rd periods……. The addition of Pronger and Emery were supposed to help, but i see it every game that we pinch way too much!!!! We leave way too many easy shots against which is what killed us last year. I feel as though the team plays its age, immature. This is the type of game that makes me wish we had Hitch back.

Sorry for the rant, just a lil tweaked from the game.

Coburn and Timonen were both a -3, and were on the ice for all four goals against.
Richards and Carter were a -2.
Carcillo, Syvret, Pyorala, and Tollefsen were all a +1.

Why you pick this game to slam Powe, Carcillo, Syvret, and Tollefsen is beyond me.

I don’t think I can fault any players on the ice for the goals that were scored. The 1st Malhotra goal was a bad bounce the others were just simply put WEAK goals. Coburn and Kimmo were on the ice but how can you fault them on shots from outside the circles sneaking past Boucher with nobody in front. The 2nd Malhotra goal was wrist shot from way out that slipped past Boucher was a total momentum killer. I don’t expect Boucher to get a shut out and a PP to goal to Heatly is to be expected but he was in position just not strong on the puck. Same can be said for all the other goals scored he was there but someone these weak low wrist shots were getting through him unscreened. Everyone was killing Emery in the loses because he was giving up breakaway goals and guys like Malkin, Semin, Ovechkin were beating him on top shelf wrist shots with traffic, but Boucher was letting the Sharks 3rd liners look like snipers and everyone is blaming Kimmo and Coburn based on +/-. The top 2 pairings play pretty much the whole game so it is more likely than not in a 4 – 1 loss one of those pairings is going to have a high -. I watched this game and Boucher should have made those saves including the Heatly goal but I will give him a pass on that on and the 1st Malhotra goal but the others killed the momentum. Sharks played solid D and limited our second chances in a game like this our PP is going to have to carry us and it didn’t get the job down. The shots from the point were getting blocked especially during key opportunities with lots of traffic.

To be fair Emery has the 10th best GAA at 2.57 18th in sv pct amongst goalies whom played more than 5 games. He is better statistically than the following goalies Krippursoff, Nibakov, Thomas, Giguere, Roloson, Price, LeClarie, Mason, Khabibulin and Osgood in both categories, and he is better that Ward in GAA, and he is practically tied with Luongo both having the same GAA with Luongo having 0.905 sv pct vs Emery’s 0.904. Emery is fine as a team the Flyers GA/G is 2.89 last year it was 2.83 considering how early it is and the teams we played I think we are doing good enough we room to improve, remember it is only October.

GAA is the hockey equivalent of pitching wins, that nonsense is meaningless.

I tend to think Goalie Wins are more like Pitching Wins and GAA is more like ERA but that is just me.

You point more value in odd ball stats like GVT and qual-comp but GAA which is the basis for the Veniza trophy is worthless. Why is that? Oh yeab because it doesn’t support you argument.

Save Percentage is just as prone problems because it doesn’t take into consideration shot quality just a number of shots, against the Sharks the Flyers managed 38 shots not many were really dangerous but Griess gets a 0.977 sv pct mostly because the Sharks D didn’t give up much.