first!

… Bartulis sounded like he had a solid game. If he continues to do well in OKT’s / Parent’s absences, maybe he’ll earn a shot at that 6th spot after all…

And I emphasize HEARD because it was another crazy night for me, but I did manage to hear large chunks on the radio.

First period was bloody boring even on the AM waves.

so I’m watching the highlights and after Briere scores his first goal, the Ottawa announcers say “Maybe Briere should join the Philadelphia Phillies, help them win a World Series.”

What a bunch of tools

Alright so we won all the games that we should win (which is excellent, I’m certainly not criticizing a five games win streak), and for the most part (St. Louis excluded), we did an excellent job of putting our opponent down and not letting them come back in the game.

But the next five games will definitely give us a better idea of how the Flyers are doing than the last five. I’m still reticent to refer to Phoenix and LA as tough opponents, but hey, they both have double digit wins so they must be doing something right. Despite the pounding the Flyers put on him, Ryan Miller is still possibly the hottest goalie in the league thus far (plus the D in front of him has been solid…with that one memorable exception), and the Devils are playing much better than they were last time we faced them. Plus there’s that whole “play in Jersey on Monday, LA on Wednesday” thing.

So yeah, in short, it’s excellent that we’ve put together a run and tied the Rangers with four games in hand, but now the games should, in theory, get a lot less boring.

This game showed the versatility that this Flyers team as and when they play with the heads on straight they can win games without dictating the play. Ottawa played a slow down neutral zone trap of a game last night knowing they could not keep up with our offense in a up and down game. The executed their game plan perfectly and in the past the Flyers would have became frustrated turned the puck over and take a lot of penalties, playing right into the hands of the trapping team. Instead of forcing the issue the Flyers played smart hockey and waited the Senators out in the process the let the crowd die out even the Lappy fight, which was very good, couldn’t get them going. My hat goes off to the coach for this win he did a great job last night adapting to the trap perfectly. Have to give credit where credit is due and while Stevens hasn’t been perfect and deserves some criticism he was good last night and deserves some credit. We also took a 1 goal lead into the 3rd and as flyrsfrk05 stated the Flyers continued to play the same way not sitting back and ended up with a big win.

Last season it seemed like the most important in close games in the 3rd was getting off the ice and taking short shifts I was frequently frustrated by the lack of attack in the 3rd. All the dump ins for line changes gave away all the momentum and resulted in many blown leads. This year the Flyers are 9-0-1 when the enter the 3rd period with a lead.

The Betts line was great again last night and the team depth showed as the Richards line couldn’t really get anything going and we stilled score 5 goals. JVR continues to put up points and is now tied for 2nd in scoring on the team at the forward position and leads all forwards in +/- at +7 so much for all the offseason debating about bringing him up and his defensive liabilities. I have a question for all those JVR haters/doubters out there, how do those words taste? Yummy

Emery was solid again dropping his GAA down to 2.14 and save percentage up to 0.924. Nice to have a true number 1 goalie in net by this time last year I am sure Nitty / Biron debate was in full swing. Hard to complain about anything in that game from a Flyers standpoint and during this 5 game winning streak in general. Hopefully the boys keep in going because winning is the only thing that keeps MarioD off the forum making this streak all the sweeter for me.

You say the Flyers dominated the emigre game, but the Sens definatley had the better first period.

It was a very boring game.

What i found interesting was Pronger played a ton in the first. It was almost as if Steven’s didn’t trust Bartulis and Syvret. They actually were awful in their first shift on the ice and the Sens had them hemmed in for a bit. After that though, both guys were pretty solid. I noticed that Stevens was playing the Carter line with them too, so maybe he feels that that line helps out those 2 D-men the best.

It’s good though that we’ve been able to get some big leads, so Stevens doesn’t have to ride the top 4 d-men all game, like he did in the first.